"Everything was new and grand, even the things that did not work, and that made up a little for daddy not being with us. Mama said that daddy was supposed to finish up the crop year and that Uncle Alton would manage to look after her things. Uncle Alton remains the most beautifully stoic and courageous man I've ever known. He inevitably found the time and the wherewithal to do whatever was asked of him. Years later, when mama got bone cancer and had to stay in bed a year in a full body cast, Uncle Alton took me in with his houseful of children, keeping me and loving me as one of his own.
Shortly after we were in the house, mama gave us one of her terse, elliptical explanations of how things were.
'Me and your daddy's separated,' she said.
'Separated?' I said.
'Yes,' she said.
'Separated from what?' I said.
'Each other,' she said.
Well, hell, I knew they were separated from each other. Hadn't I just been on a bus for three hours? It would be awhile before I understood she was talking about more than distance."
-- Harry Crews, A Childhood: The Biography of a Place
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