The Other Family Reunion

Lucy is in Houston. She's not as young as she once was, and doesn't get out much (a lot of people are upset that she is visiting Houston). So we decide to nip down for a weekend and show her to Vivian.

Saturday morning arrives in Houston - warm and muggy with the mingled aromas of bayous and exhaust. We stop by Central Market, grab some breakfast, pick up Cara and Holden from down the street (after all, they are family too) and head on to Herman Park where Lucy is staying. I wonder what Lucy thinks about how her family has turned out. During her day, she scratched out a living and tried hard to not become some one's dinner. Now her peeps are the dominant species on the planet and well on their way to screwing it up (Dubya and Crichton not withstanding).

It's about 1030 in the morning. By the time we get there, 20-30 of our relatives are already there. We wander around and look at this and that. Then I tell Jo that I want to take Vivian over to Lucy before the crowd gets here. We step into an anteroom with a slide show. Everything looks somber enough - except that "Lucy in the sky with diamonds" is playing endlessly in a cheesy loop. I have Vivian riding on my shoulders. We enter the circular darkened room with with a single spot under which Lucy lays. Jo is beside us pushing Vivian's empty stroller. There are a lot of people in the room - but it's quiet. Then another woman with a stroller asks Jo what kind of stroller she has, and they fall into a consumer-report type conversation. I hold Vivian over Lucy. She stares. I wonder what she sees.