on christmas we visit julie's grandmother, her sight failing deep into her ninety-first year. 'i haven't read a book since march,' she says, 'but it doesn't make me cry anymore.' her father had been a printmaker and she has been around books her whole life. her basement, as i remember from my own youth, is a landscape of boxed-up, over-read science fiction. the refrigerator in the kitchen where these visits always take place is still plastered with yellowed index cards upon which handwritten quotations from her favourites have been imprinted since long before i was born. 'the earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in,' said robert heinlein; says the card.
'how can you get used to that?' my sister asks.
'you can get used to anything,' she replies. 'you get used to hanging if you hang long enough.'
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