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74 Errata The smile your father saw in the wallpaper had nothing to do with your mother. There were dozens of faces in the flowers, had he taken the time to look. Many of them were weeping, buckets of wisteria. still he was right to ask for her hand. The scorched curtain that sent him away five years later, however, was right on the money. It meant Take the children. she’d have burned you in her sleep. Your grandfather would still be alive if he hadn’t trusted the gulls. They were lost when they passed over his boat, nowhere near land. Your grandmother’s vision that night —the ship’s cat soaking wet at the foot of her bed—well. . .that was a kind of grace little seen anymore. Indeed, a deep breath has been cut from this evening in error. Put it back. It comes when you step from the shower. You need a moment to see the mirror; the veins of steam forming a shape beneath your reflection. Let it remind you of a word & go to bed. Ignore those patterns in the ceiling. no good can come of them. ...

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