The Sum of Our Days Read Online Free PDF

of the tour with a heavy rock in my chest, confident that my escorts would lead me by the hand during the day, accompany me to that night’s reading, and leave me at the airport the following dawn. During the long hours of the flight from New York to San Francisco, I had time to think about Sabrina, but I never imagined the way that granddaughter would change lives.
    â€œShe has a very old soul,” said Odilia, the nurse, after the pediatrician left. “I’ve seen a lot of newborns in the twenty-two years I’ve worked here, but one like Sabrina . . . never. She takes in everything. I stay with her even after my shift is over, and I came Sunday to see her, because I can’t get her out of my head.”
    â€œDo you think she’s going to die?” I asked in a choked voice.
    â€œThat’s what the staff say. You heard the doctor. But I know she will live. She’s come to stay; she has good karma.”
    Karma. Again karma. How many times have I heard that term in California? The idea of karma drives me up the wall. To believe in destiny is limiting enough, but karma is much worse; it goes back through a thousand previous lifetimes, and sometimes you have to carry the misdeeds of your ancestors. Destiny can be changed, but to clear your karma takes a lifetime, and even that may not be enough. But that wasn’t the moment to discuss philosophy with Odilia. I felt an infinite tenderness for the baby and gratitude for the nurse who felt real affection for her. I buried my face in the diaper that enveloped Sabrina, happy that she was in the world.
    Willie and I left the nursery holding each other up. We went down several identical corridors looking for the exit, until we came to an elevator. Its mirror returned our images. It seemed to me that Willie had aged a century. His shoulders, always so arrogant, now slumped in defeat. I noticed the wrinkles around his eyes, the line of his jaw, less bold than before, and how at some point his little remaining hair had turned white. How quickly the days go by. I hadn’t seen the changes in his body and I didn’t see him as he was but as I remembered him. To me he was still the man I had fallen in love with at first sight six years before: handsome, athletic, wearing a dark suit that fit him a little snugly, as if his shoulders were challenging the seams. I liked his spontaneous laughter, his confident attitude, his elegant hands. He inhaled all the air around him, occupied all the space. One could see that he had lived and suffered, but he seemed invulnerable. And me? What had he seen in me when we met? How much I had changed in those six years, especially these last months? I had also been seeing myself through the same charitable filter of habit, never noticing the inevitable physical decline, the less firm breasts, the thicker waist, the sadder eyes. The mirror in the elevator revealed to me how exhausted we both were, something more profound than weariness from my travel and his work. Buddhists say that life is a river, that we are carried on a raft to our final destination. The river has its current, rapids, sandbars, whirlpools, and other obstacles that we can’t control, but we are given a pair of oars to guide our craft. The quality of the voyage depends upon our skill, but we cannot alter the course because the river always empties into death. Sometimes we have no choice but to give ourselves to the current, but that wasn’t the case here. I took a deep breath, stretched to my full, albeit meager, height, and slapped my husband on the back.
    â€œStand up straight, Willie, we have to row.”
    He looked at me with that confused expression he tends to have when he thinks my English is deserting me.

A Nest for Sabrina
    I NEVER DOUBTED THAT Willie and I would take charge of Sabrina: if the parents can’t do it, it becomes the responsibility of the grandparents; it’s a law of nature. However, I soon discovered