Summary

Maisie Lord

This is Harriet’s daughter, her youngest child, who is a grown woman now. She writes in her manuscript that she worried about her mother that year after her father died. She says that there were a number of human strays that came and stayed at her mother’s apartment One of them called himself the Barometer and had been released from the mental institution. When Maisie expressed her concern for her mother’s safety, Harriet replied that the man is gentle and that he can draw very well.

Maisie says that her father used to call her mother, My Madonna of the Mind. At the time she’d thought it was a nice name, but as she got older she understood that it was in many ways demeaning. She says that the first time that she...