| Feature
by Campbell Armstrong in Salon.com
EXCERPT
I remember the beginning like this.
I'm at home, standing at the windows of
my office on a June evening in Ireland, and I'm on idle, one of my favorite
conditions. A sunny day, rare in the disappointing summer of 1997. My son
Stephen, visiting from the United States, has gone downstairs to make a
phone call: his mother Eileen, my ex-wife, has an appointment that morning
with a doctor in Phoenix, Arizona.
| A cough has been worrying her, and she's
decided to have an X ray and checkup. Stephen wants to know the results.
All day long he's been a little preoccupied. He's usually outgoing and
cheerful, his humor nicely marbled with absurdity and nonsense and bursts
of mimicry. But today he's slipped a gear or two. |
Barbara and her mother
Eileen, reunited after 42 years, in Arizona, 1997.
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