A hip appeared. "The Flying Lady," Oliver said.
"Damn!" George said, chipping and prying. Gobs of oatmeal colored
investment fell away. "Not bad!" George held up the Lady and the heart
on their bronze tree. "We cut them off and
polish. . ."
An hour later, filled with wine and a sense of accomplishment, Oliver
walked up Danforth Street. The bronze heart was solid and heavy in his
pocket. He warmed it in his hand, feeling the O, the plus sign, and the
F over and over again, a mantra said with the ball of his thumb. When
he got home, he placed the heart on one of the walnut boards, fed
Verdi, and went to bed.
He lay there remembering the bronze pouring into the heart. A bit of
him had poured with it, and an exchange had taken place: something
bronze had entered him at the same moment.
3.
"Mythic," Oliver said to Paul Peroni, the next afternoon. They were
sitting at the kitchen table with his mother. Paul was weighing the
heart in his palm as Oliver described the bronze casting. Oliver's
mother took another tea biscuit.
"Never too old for a valentine," she said, seeming to note the absence
of a female presence in the apartment.
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