" I cleared a stack ofpapers off the settee to make enough space for her. Since Anthony'sdeath there had seemed little point in doing housework. I ...as alsopadding out my meagre income by doing reviews of poetry and novels forseveral journals, and as a result the flat was awash with manuscriptsand books. Cassandra sat in the middle of this paper chaos and smiled.I moved to the kitchen in something between a walk and a run, dodgingpiles of paper and magazines. After putting the kettle on I. “I miss her so much, but her memory is fading,” he sobbed. “I don’t want to forget her, Dad.”“You won’t. We can’t. She was and always will be your mother, Jer. She would be so proud of these,” I said with a wave toward his art. “I’m so proud of you. You’ve captured her spirit here. You’ve shown how much you love her and want her to be watching over you. It’s a testament to what a wonderful mother she was.”“But you’re replacing her,” he said.“No. I’m not. I will always love your mom, Jer, just. "What you need Max?" he asked."Take a good look at my scalp, see if you see anything crawling around up there. I have some terrible itching going on."Marty took a long time looking before he said, "Max you got some kind of critters running around up there." He paused a long time then asked, "What you want to do about it?" I want to stop at a drugstore somewhere and get some poison shampoo and I want to get one of those electric clipper things. You are about to share the ride with a new kind of. I loved how susceptible to embarrassment she was, though what she was doing wasn’t worth being ashamed of. Alright, it was an act of service of sorts, but she was pleasing me and herself through it. No different, in many ways, from brushing my hair or fetching me water, and yet imbued with such a special symbolic charge for me, and seemingly for her too, that she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t a form of devotion.She let my foot drop to the bottom, and grabbed the other one, giving it the same.