Dr. Elnora Haggerty was her name. Born Kimberly, she took the name of a gentle and erudite stepfather who grinned fearlessly upon life; was educated in Vienna and Edinburgh, practiced in Copenhagen, then in Ithaca, New York. The cold fields were not sufficient for her, did not startle her, did not impede her, did not stifle her nor bend her; cold can do many things she said and made a movement with her lips, 1 thought she was about to smile, it can even heat.
        She went west, practicing, standing on footstools set to her tables where, they said, she should have stuffed birds and left manipulations of human flesh and tissues to wiser hands of men.
        She persisted, standing on her stools, under bright unshaded lights whose illumination fell like weight upon her narrow sloping shoulders and she wore her spectacles and she never rouged and she rarely smiled but if she did, ah, if she did, then 1 knew 1 had been blessed. It was as if she had invited 1 to walk beneath the cool palm trees sprouting from green lawns which spread to sunny sea on air which sweet peas breathed. Shards of shadow beneath the palms were like seabirds, and their calls.
        The broken wing beat behind her.
        The heart rhythm of that brokenness was always behind her.