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30 Family Reunion Women stood in the shade waving handkerchiefs at their bosoms, sighing over how large their children had grown. In an arc facing the muddy horseshoe pit, the men lounged in folding chairs and drank beer from aluminum cans. Breathless summer pressed upon us, the woods buzzing in sunlight like flies around the outhouse. My mother stood watch at the giant kettles of corn that boiled and swirled. Raw meat glistening on paper plates, the fat soaked through to grimy oilcloth on folding tables. She wouldn’t let me eat anyone else’s food, didn’t trust her own family to wash their hands. 31 On the back of a pickup truck, an old man in a porkpie hat played fiddle. Two uncles rolled cigarette after cigarette, tossing the butts at a half-bald dog. My cousins yelled in the woods. My father pushed me toward the dapple, but I held back. Blood is blood, he said. Blood is blood. ...

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