game. He knows this, and draws the game out for as long as we can muster. Then weakness or boredom sets in. We both forget, accuser and apologist, and then suddenly on a rainy day we see you on television, and you say I regret, I am sorry, it is unfortunate. And suddenly the game is over, and rain crashes down on the windows even harder.
I did not see my sister until after my mother died. All very sad, I was told, a sudden illness, but I did not have the chance to see her. I was participating in yet another talk, a chance to expound on the dangers of forget and neglect, We must confront our collective pasts or we are doomed, etcetera, and looking at these bright young faces, these assorted nods and clenched fists, I had to wonder, am I their Santa Claus? They gathered around me, offered chewed-up pens for signatures, and I signed, every last one,
 | | because I have no scruples about being a celebrity, someone must set a good example, it must be proven that to be famous is to be the same as everything else, just something to get through. Again, I am told: What you are doing cannot be measured. Or: The stories you are recovering will become part of our cultural narrative. I can only mumble thanks, and suggest that the book will be around long after we are all gone. They can all get behind that. And then my sister calls: Mother has died, I am executor of the estate, What are you going to do about the money? When Mother was alive, she sent my sister a stipend every month, and every month the same response: How can I live on this? And my mother would snap, You don't have a job! You just sit at home, buy expensive clothes! Which was true, although it wasn't my sister's fault, we were told, it was this thing inside her head, this thing that did not allow her
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