. for now. Harry . . . will you do something . . . for me?”
I placed the glass and saucer on the table. “Anything, M.”
“Come . . . to bed.”
“Get in with you, you mean?”
“Yes,” she said. “Like . . . before.”
Standing by the bed, I undressed: shoes and socks and pants and shirt. I folded these items carefully, placed my shoes on top, and rested it all on a chair.
“So . . . handsome,” she said. “Now . . . come . . . to bed.”
I cranked the bed down and climbed in beside her. The mattress was narrow, and had chrome bars on the sides; beneath the sheet I could feel the squeaking friction of the rubber barrier. I pulled her across me, so that her chest lay against my own, her head resting in the hollow of my neck.
“It’s good . . . to think . . . of Hal.”
“I wish you could have been there, M.”
“I was . . . Harry. You . . . told me . . . and I . . . was there. Don’t cry . . . Harry.”
“I’m sorry, M. I’ll try not to.”
“Remember . . . that . . . night? I told you . . . it would be . . . all right.” A long inhalation of breath. “It will . . . be.”
“I know that, M.”
“Tell me . . . another . . . story.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Yes . . . you . . . can.” I felt her nod, though this was, I knew, a memory. Her breath was warm and slow on my neck. “I know . . . you, Harry.”
I took a deep breath, then heard myself speaking. My voice was strange and far away, seeming to come at once from inside me and from the air of the dark room all around.
“Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman, and they had two boys. The first one was very little. He was sick, and for a time they thought he might die, but eventually he became well, though he stayed little because of this sickness, and his mother and father loved him very much. The second boy grew and became a man, and they loved him, too, though differently. That is what they learned in their lives together: that the little boy, because he stayed little, would always have a special kind of love, but that the other boy, who grew, would be the one who would take care of them, when they themselves grew old. The first love was sweeter, and a little sad, because when the man and the woman felt it, they were remembering. But the second was stronger, because they knew it would last them all the days of their lives. M?”
“Yes . . . Harry?”
“Was the story what you wanted?”
“It . . . was always . . . what I wanted.” Then: “Tell me . . . more. Tell me . . . anything.”
I did. I told her everything; I talked for hours, or thought I did. I told her every story I knew. Her breathing grew slow and heavy against my chest, like long waves on a beach. And when I was done, she said, quietly, “I’m . . . thirsty.”
“I’ll get you some water.”
“No . . . Harry.” She seemed to shake her head. “The . . . other. Please.”
“M. I just can’t.”
“Shhhh . . . don’t cry . . . Harry.”
“I can’t, I can’t.”
“I am . . . your wife, Harry. I am . . . your wife . . . and I need you . . . to do this.”
Then the glass was in my hand. It was warm, from hours of sitting, and thick with the grains of the crushed pills; the mixture had separated a little, leaving a dark layer of medicine at the bottom, and so I took a spoon from the bedside table to stir it, quietly, so as not to disturb the silence of the room with even the slightest contact of metal on glass. I slid behind her, taking her weight on my chest, and held the straw to her lips. She was forty-five years old.
“That’s it . . . Harry.”
Her sips were small, like a bird taking water from a garden fountain: delicate, and without hesitation. A dozen times she drank, taking the milk and the pills into her. A stream of the bitter liquid ran down the sides of her mouth,