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12 Downstairs  Living Room That Chair She almost died in that wingback chair by the living room window. We’d eaten at Mount Aire up on Pine Mountain—a Sunday in September, it was— when pain began to twist her heart as we whip-stitched those switchback curves coming down. She said nothing. This was an anniversary celebration for my other grandparents. She said nothing when the car drew up to the house, just got out, traveled driveway and steps, threshold and hall, walked across the living room to that chair. Then it was obvious, sweat pouring off, her face all the wrong color, her eyes blank. Someone ran for Flora, our neighbor, a nurse, who sent my mother for the bottle of ammonia under the sink. She twisted Downstairs  Living Room 13 the cap off, then held Granny Buby’s head, forcing her, if she was breathing to breathe that jolt. After the ambulance and my parents left, Flora told me my grandmother’s corset, which bound her middle tight as roads bound that mountain, was the other savior. “It kept enough blood in her heart,” Flora said. “If it had pooled in her feet, she’d be gone.” I think of this when I sit in that chair my grandmother didn’t die in. No wings on her back that day. ...

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