I would have to go on listening. Everyone would, everyone always did. I wanted to say no, I will not listen any more, you ought to be put in a cage and shipped off to New Guinea to be eaten. I had to face it, she had failed to live up to my assumptions, and there was some doubt that I would ever forgive her for that. It was better to assume nothing. This wreck my mother, how did I know what had gone into her that I had come out of her? I didn't looking anything like him, I was probably prop man's spawn, bastard sprout of her vegetable cook, or had Don Enrique given it to her good, floor of the tack room, bedding of saddle blankets smelling of mare's lather, old man's seed tequila-watery, bang, boom, miracle of life, timing is everything, ladies and gentlemen, the secret of comic delivery, a star is born... No, no, this was not my mother, this was what was left of her. You could still see the other mother, she had all her teeth, she kept her nails almond-perfect. Look hard, I told myself, what you see is suffering, will yourself to pity. She means no harm. She is finished, that's definite, felled by a pudding.
