The Moment She Was Gone
Chapter 1
My mother phones me the moment Annie is gone.
It is two o'clock in the morning.
I know at once who is calling and why. Nobody but my mother ever calls me at two in the morning, and then only to tell me that my sister is gone again.
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The family gathers in the early morning hours. I get there last because I live in Chelsea, all the way downtown, and my mother's apartment is on West End Avenue and Eighty-first Street. They are already talking about what to do when I come in. My sister-in-law Augusta offers me a cup of coffee, and then we go in to join the others in the living room.
My mother is sixty-three years old, but she still skis and she still travels and there are many people who find her attractive. When I look at her, I see a thin, hawkish-faced woman with piercing green eyes ... read full excerpt from The Moment She Was Gone: A Novel ebook
