"Playground" Excerpt
"Playground" Excerpt
MY FAT HER W R ECKED HIS BACK while skiing with his mistress
in Big Sky. He came within millimeters of full paralysis. The pain
crippled him, and he needed immediate surgery. My mother took
me to Montana to see him as he never was—prostrate and almost
benign. They gazed at each other and grabbed hands, fused again
by near-disaster. But the minute the ICU nurse stepped out, they
were at each other’s throats.
“You told me you were in New York for a convention.”
“You’re so gullible! Why would a Chicago pit trader go to New
York for a convention?”
She whispered, as if I couldn’t hear, “You are a piece of sordid
shit and I’m divorcing you.”
“Too late!” His bright eyes danced with oxycodone. “My law-
yers are working on the papers already.”
My mother gasped, and her whole body folded. You can’t play