The mother's not having kept her circus costumes and paraphernalia indicates, perhaps, her desire to possess nothing to remind her of the great tragedy of having lost her husband and her role as a circus star. Also, after this tragedy, she began a new life, so she may not have wished to look backward.
After the long months of recovery from her loss, burns and broken arm, Anna of the Flying Avalons ceased to exist. Instead, having fallen in love with her attending physician, who opened new worlds for the lifelong performer by teaching her to read, Anna made an "exchange":
I wonder if my father calculated the exchange he offered: one form of flight for another. For after that, and for as long as I can remember, my mother has never been without a book.
While she does not keep her things from the circus, what Anna does retain, however, is place. For, after she was married to the physician, they moved onto an old farm that he had inherited. While he found life in this small area "constricting," Anna insisted that they remain there after the baby she was carrying did not survive her fall. This first child of Anna's is "buried around the corner, beyond this house and just down the highway."
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