My starring role in Amy’s tableau had given her the impetus to carry on, and I’d left her upstairs, to re-dress the doll, or string more lights, or maybe run the chainsaw just to break something apart. As I had come down the stairs from the attic, my hands were shaking. “What are you doin’,” May said, climbing into my lap on the living room couch. “Nothin’,” I said. “What are you doin’?” “What are you readin’, I said,” she said. “The New Yorker?” “The noonyorker?” “For people who live in New York. Who are fancy.” May had recently proven her ability to read Green Eggs and Ham by herself, from start to finish. Of course I knew that she didn’t really recognize the words, that she had just memorized them sequentially like lines in a play, but words were now interesting to her. She understood that they were pieces of a whole, something worth paying attention to. May nodded. “Spell it.” “N-E-W.” I pointed to each letter on the cover. “N-E-W,”
