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30 My Mother Crochets the Lord’s Last Supper My sister and I sit at our mother’s feet, studiously watercoloring designs on her bare legs. My sister paints a map with a tiny cartouche just above our mother’s thin ankle. A sea monster lurks in the aquamarine, racing toward my mother’s shin. A ship sails, unaware, behind her knee. We seem invisible to our mother, two girls bored with summer. Her eyes focus on her hands that move the needle drawing up thick white thread from the large spool beside us. Her mouth moves as if she mumbles a prayer or a curse under her breath, but she’s just keeping count of the stitches. I paint hunters, my mother’s flesh a cave wall—outlines of human figures shooting arrows that arc toward running deer, awkward buffalo. Occasionally she discovers a mistake and unravels a large section, discarding a half hour’s work without pause. ...

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