“Nothing goes right for me,” she said. The treatments had failed and the failure discouraged her. She was discouraged by how discouraged she was. “Other people are braver than me, Francis. I’m not the only one who ever lost a husband. Other women keep going and I don’t know why I can’t. You’ve got yourself a rotten mother, that’s all. I’m so sorry.” She cried whenever she looked at him now. “You ought to have a happy home like other kids and look at you. You got an old hag of a mother who sits here bawling like a calf. A big baby. That’s all I am.” Her day was regulated by the radio. It was the only life she had. She woke early for the Shepherd Boys Quartet singing gospel songs on The Rise and Shine Show and she went to bed after The Calhoun Club Ballroom and the sweet music of Tommy Leonard and His Lake Serenaders and the dancers slipping quietly around the breezy terrace overlooking Excelsior Boulevard. And in between she followed all her shows faithfully, listening, writing in.
