Mother and child

"Should I stand here and let her spit on me, and call it rain! No, not for the People's Republic of China! She looks like she's just been taken down from the Cross!" shrilled my mother.

My grandfather stayed out of it. He sat on the back porch of our Queens house and timed the intervals between the airplanes passing overhead. "He's ascertaining whether they're on time," editorialized my mother.

Later, we saw a handwritten sign in the window of the Polish grocery store. "Nic nie mówi i nic nie pamięta," it read, describing a lost child. "Doesn't say anything and doesn't remember anything."