Just before Norma was born. I see Mom, a thin, dark-haired woman who talks too fast and uses her hands too much.
As always her face is blurred. Her hair is up in a bun, and her hand goes to touch it, pat it smooth, as if she has to make sure it's still there.
I remember that she was always fluttering like a big, white bird—around my father, and he too heavy and tired to escape her pecking.
I see Charlie, standing in the center of the kitchen, playing with his spinner, bright colored beads and rings threaded on a string.
He holds the string up in one hand turns the rings so they wind and unwind in bright spinning flashes.
He spends long hours watching his spinner. I don't know who made it for him, or what became of it,
but I see him standing there fascinated as the string untwists and sets the rings spinning....
She is screaming at him—no, she's screaming at his father. "I'm not going to take him. There's nothing wrong with him!"
"Rose, it won't do any good pretending any longer that nothing is wrong. Just look at him, Rose. Six years old, and—"
"He's not a dummy. He's normal. He'll be just like everyone else."
He looks sadly at his son with the spinner and Charlie smiles and holds it up to show him how pretty it is when it goes around and around.
"Put that thing away!" Mom shrieks and suddenly she knocks the spinner from Charlie's hand, and it crashes across the kitchen floor.
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