“Mom,” I said firmly, and I hoped kindly. “Tell me this again. You shook Buster Keaton’s hand? Where?”
The slight pause ought to have warned me.
“At the end of his arm, of course.” Her laughter, which conjured up a delightful image of her face, turned into a hacking cough. After a few seconds, she recovered and apologized. “This darned hiatus hernia.”
I took a deep breath and vowed not to talk to her as if she was a child. “Very good, very funny. But are you sure it was Buster Keaton’s hand?”
“I might be old, but I know it wasn’t his leg.”
“Mom.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s who it was. He was selling war bonds. I remember he gave a kind of speech at the factory where I was working. Yes, Buster Keaton, that’s right.”
I didn’t know what to say. It was certainly possible that Keaton had tr
