WEBVTT

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Dad stood on the ladder.

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He'd painted all
the edges first,

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near the ceiling and floors
and windows and corners,

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and then he'd taken
out the roller

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and started in on wide swaths
of Prussian Wildflower.

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"A bit dark isn't it?"

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"Well, it's what
your mother wants.

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It'll lighten up as it
dries too, Allie Oop."

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This cheerfulness
was disconcerting.

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He'd been duped into thinking
he could please my mother.

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"It looks different
from the little card."

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"Goddammit, " Dad said.

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A slop of paint had
fallen to the floor.

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The fact of the matter is,
both my parents were fish

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out of water in Weston.

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Mom with her dreams of being
a painter and Dad with his day

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job and his poetry books,
including the award winning

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one, all lined up on the mantel.

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They were attempting
to piece together

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a life with art at
its center, and also--

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not that I was fully aware
of this at the time--

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making choices based on
what might be good for me,

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their daughter.

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Art geeks, adversaries,
people who drove old cars--

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they weren't part
of the PTA crowd,

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and they weren't
swingers, either.

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Mainly they were
simply my parents

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and it was extraordinarily
embarrassing

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but seemed pretty natural
that they were so weird.

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"Look, you can't tell anything
from the card," he said.

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"Take a rag to that
spot, would you, please?"

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"Why do they have
the cards then?"

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"To beguile the
willing, Alison."

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"Why would they do that?

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They would never do that."

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"You don't think so?

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Think about the
visceral and dark depths

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of the workingman's
resentment, darling,

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and you might have
another idea."

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The son of Irish immigrants
and bardic descendant

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of many a workingman,
my father looked

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like he was a half second
away from falling off

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the rickety old ladder--

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either him or the tray
of Prussian Wildflower.

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"Do we have any more 7-Up?"

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Dad concentrated on his
next swab of the roller.

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His somewhat long and unkempt
beard, a poet's beard,

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bobbed precariously
close to the wall.

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"Dad?"

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He grunted.

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He smoothed the roller
down, then over,

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making a reverse blue
cloud in a white sky.

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"Try the garage."

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I sat at the kitchen
table, drinking 7-Up

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and reading the Weston Forum.

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It featured golf and
tennis tournaments,

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with a handful of asides
about "happenings"

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at the Norfield Grange.

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I didn't know for sure
what a "grange" was,

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though I thought perhaps
it was a place where

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they stored wheat, or made
pantaloons in yesteryear.

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I studied the picture of
the winners and doubles

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at the Aspetuck Country
Club Summer's End Mixer,

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two women in ruffled culottes
and their partners, men

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with thinning hair.

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Another photo was
of four men who'd

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won the Muscular Dystrophy
Benefit Golf Tournament--

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plaid all around.

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I didn't notice the
article at first,

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probably because
the accompanying

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photo was so obscure--

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a hazy image of boulders,
pine trees and perhaps, a bit

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of a stream or river.

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"Teen Dies in Fall,"
read the headline.

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At first I thought
it meant, you know,

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September, which seemed to
bode ill for me, specifically,

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as I contemplated my upcoming
entree into public school life,

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starting with eighth grade.

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A 16-year-old youth
died Saturday night,

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apparently after
a daredevil dive

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off the rocks at Devil's Glen.

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The youth, whose
name has not been

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released because of his
age, was from out of town.

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"A tragic act like this,
it didn't need to happen.

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Kids will be kids but
parents need to take action,"

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said Police Chief
Riley at the Town Forum

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on Monday, urging parents to
warn kids away from this area,

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long a hot spot for teenage
congregation and tomfoolery.

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Tomfoolery?

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That was an annoying word.

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Mom appeared on the
stairs, carrying groceries.

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She was wearing purple
sunglasses, the frames big

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and round as apples.

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"I found the best store,"
she said breathlessly.

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"Zillions of healthy
things to eat."

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"Oh, no," I said.

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My mother was
mounting a campaign

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against the tried-and-true
food of my youth.

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It had been a sad day when she
swept through our cabinets,

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throwing away yummy
things and replacing them

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with less yummy things.

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Skippy peanut butter was
tossed, for instance,

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and replaced by an unsalted
almond-peanut blend.

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"How's the studio coming?

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Been down there recently?"

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She extricated herself
from her sunglasses,

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pulled the yellow and
purple scarf from her hair.

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"He's working on it," I
said, peering into a bag.

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Bulk items-- the worst.

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"Didn't you get any Oreos?

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Or anything to eat?"

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"What do you mean?

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Look at all this!"

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She began to pull things out--
dried fruit, unsalted almonds,

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oatmeal, some other
cereal with black flecks,

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a huge bag of brown rice.

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Her long blonde hair
whoosed as she moved.

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She was wearing straight
pants and red pointy shoes

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from Afghanistan.

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Even in this hippie
garb, she stood straight

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and skinny, betraying
years of childhood ballet.

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"What about regular food?"

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I asked.

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"What is 'regular,' Alison?"

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Mom said.

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"Regular food is for
regular people, my darling."

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I sat back down and began
drawing psychotic spirals

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on a pad of paper.

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"I couldn't find
anything for lunch."

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"Oh, Allie, we've
got soup, tuna.

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Look here-- good
twelve-grain bread.

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And loads of cheese."

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"Fritos?"

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"No.

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I got some bean sprouts.

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And kale," she said.

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"You mean to say you
don't like kale?"

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"I don't even know
what kale is, Mom."

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"The soul is what's
at stake, Allie,"

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she said then, pouring
rice into the largest

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of the plastic canisters
with mushroom tops.

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She gave me a meaningful look.

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"And your back most of all."

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"I just want a nice snack,"
I said in a monotone.

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"Bingo!

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Carob instead of chocolate!

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Honey instead of white sugar!"

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She tossed me a Tiger's
Milk bar and trotted down

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the orange stairs.

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Did I mention that the entire
house was carpeted in orange--

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orange as a spilled
soda, an emergency flag,

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a lone life jacket floating
on the surface of a lake?

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In a minute I heard what
seemed like a cry from below,

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a bird hitting a
window, and then silence

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and then some other rumblings
of what seemed like anger.

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Then silence again.

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Next, my mother's Afghan
slippers dragged back upstairs,

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to the living room landing,
and then up still farther,

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toward the bedrooms.

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Her head was bowed,
her shoulders hunched--

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not at all like a ballerina.

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Soon my father appeared.

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Now he had blue
paint on his beard,

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as if a robin's egg
had broken there.

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"What's happening?"

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"She doesn't like
the color," he said,

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reaching into the
refrigerator for a beer.

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I went downstairs myself
to check out the studio.

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The walls were two-thirds done
in velvety blue, the remaining

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white a jagged
rectangle of the past.

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I walked up to
the wall, right up

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to the edge between
white and blue.

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If I squinted, here, where
the roller had gone over once,

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lightly, maybe I could
make it the right color.

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I could settle her
down, get her back

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to the kitchen to eat a plate
full of organic apricots.

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It was only paint, but for
Mom the wrongness of the blue

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was a sign, a constellation
that bode ill.

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The New Age movement
was in full swing--

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hippies and suburban wastrels
and visionaries and lost souls

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were making the
transition, copping

00:08:32.250 --> 00:08:35.250 align:middle line:84%
an allegiance to new
foodstuffs and unguents

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and all manner of alchemy, and
some of it was almost divine

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and some of it was
dangerous, far more dangerous

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than the wrong blue,
and we, at the time,

00:08:46.260 --> 00:08:50.310 align:middle line:84%
couldn't tell one
from the other.

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And that's where I'm going
to leave off on the novel.

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