XXXIIINat’s letters to his mother were direct and often vivid. Ase was not offended that none was ever addressed to him. He had long accepted the bond between the two, and his own exclusion. He handed her the letter. Nellie ripped open the envelope, scanned the first lines, then thrust the letter at Ase, saying “Read it to me.”
She rocked back and forth in the Boston rocker, her hands crossed over her plump stomach, as he read slowly aloud. Her satisfaction rose to the surface like the thick golden cream on the milk pans. At a piece of news, she lifted her eyebrows and said, “Um-hum.” When a remark of Nat’s amused her, she wrinkled her nose. She smiled from beginning to end. Ase thought with pain and pity of his own mother, starved for just such nourishment from Benjamin, driven mad, perh
