The pilot and I stayed at a cheap, extended-stay lodge by the small-craft airport during the first six months we were together. I was really young. Twenty-two. About to turn twenty-three, but I was just twenty-two.
The hospital was uptown on First Avenue, big, pale, and brand new, its atrium lobby with windows two stories high. Ivy held her son’s hand crossing bright squares on a white floor.
My father recently lost a toe. The second one on his right foot, lopped off in an outpatient procedure, quick and painless. Such a funny thing to lose, everybody thought—my mother, sisters, brother, the grandkids all finding much levity in...
