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By Root 494 0

of you, no matter how sick and fed up with your sickness you are, that does not want you to heal. It will actually fight you. Sometimes I think of it as a small boy, he said, and laughed. He is there having a good time at your expense and if you get well he worries there will be nothing left to do. No games to play with your sick body, no games to play with your mind. And this little boy will have to be negotiated. It was one of Armando’s favorite words. He will have to be negotiated, just like you would talk to a lawyer. If I am well, you must tell him, there will actually be lots more for you to do. More games for you to play, because we will be much stronger. If we are much stronger, we can go more places. We can have more fun. He is an odd little boy, this part of yourself that wants to control you while you are sick. And sometimes we are all charmed by him. That is why sometimes people who are not very sick will suddenly die. They have listened to his voice too long. It is very seductive.

One afternoon, as Armando was singing over her and Cosmi was fanning her with his fan, Missy seemed to die. Her rigid body became flaccid. Her head lolled to one side. Kate moved immediately to sit beside her, and when Missy woke up, Kate was looking down at her. Missy said: Oh, something’s gone.

Whew, said Kate. We thought you were.

Missy sat up, looked around at the circle, and seemed to realize where she was.

I’ve been away, she said.

Welcome back, said Kate.

You have to understand that my grandfather, who incested me, was very small, she told them the next day. He was tiny for a man. And I think that had something to do with it. He was also a clown. That’s what he did professionally. He was the clown, especially at children’s parties. He was also the clown very often at home. My mom and I lived with him, because my father went off to the army and never came back. If he died there she never told me. She used to tell me God was my father and that that made me and Jesus siblings. I loved Jesus! Even today I think Jesus is really the coolest. And talk about hair. I thought it was just Cool City that his locks were always long. The only other person I knew who dared wear strange hair was my grandfather, so he was always right up there with Jesus Christ in my mind.

My grandfather, Timmy Wimmins, took care of us, and, while she worked, he took care of his little Squiggly Wiggly. Me. My mother didn’t find out what was going on until I was ten, when I was trying to stop playing with Timmy Wimmins and she wondered what had gotten into me.

Well, she said, frowning, when she found out what had literally gotten into me, she was not amused.

We left my grandfather’s house. But we couldn’t leave off feeling love for him. Except for what he’d done to me, he was the greatest guy.

Missy looked down into the river. It was swollen from a thunderstorm the night before. The glints of light across it matched the highlights in her brown hair.

I missed him terribly, she said. And so did my mom. We were so used to him. To his jokes, to his pranks, to his dependability. I was used to him physically too, she added thoughtfully. I didn’t want him messing around my private parts anymore, she said primly, but I sure missed snuggling and cuddling and lying on the sofa on a rainy afternoon watching cartoons. And eating popcorn with walnuts and raisins!

My mom missed having him cook for us. Missed having him waiting at the door with a glass of wine in his hand for her. Missed never having to take the car to the repair shop or to get it washed.

She paused. In a way, my grandfather was our father and our husband.

The five of them were sitting together watching the river.

And did he incest her? asked Hugh.

I don’t think so, said Missy. But we never talked about it. He might have, when she was small.

I outgrew him, actually. At ten I was taller than he was.

They were silent for a while.

He used to tickle me. Make me laugh. He was so funny. He’d be wearing his clown clothes and his clown nose. And then the playing would run off into sex; but it was