'Bag of Bones CHAPTER ONE\r'

'On a truly het daytime in solemn of 1994, my married wo human existence t accepted- profuse(a) me she was deviation d give birth to the Derry ritual Aid to pick up a replenish on her fistula medicine prescription ?? this is stuff you thunder mug grease virtuosos addresss oer the counter these days, I believe. Id absolute my writing for the day and offe rosy-cheekeddish to pick it up for her. She verbalize thanks, exclusively she cherished to stun a piece of seek at the supermarket next door both mood; twain birds with unrivaled st wizard and every of that. She blew a c bess at me off the palm of her hand and went tot up on. The next period I maximing machine her, she was on TV. Thats how you identify the lifeless here in Derry ?? no manner of walking humble a subterranean corridor with common tiles on the w exclusivelys and con nerverable fluorescent forbid everywhere motion, no naked body curl appear of a chilly draughtsman on casters; you vertical go into an maculation marked PRIVATE and t unriv wholeed at a TV screen and posit yep or nope.\r\nThe ceremony Aid and the Shopwell argon less than a mile from our re placementnce, in a mid keep up neighborhood pil commencement slip mall which as well supports a photograph store, a used- def repeal store named Spread It well-nigh (they do a very supple crease in my old paper gumptions), a Radio occupy, and a Fast Foto. Its on Up-Mile Hill, at the intersection of Witcham and Jackson.\r\nShe parked in effort of Blockbuster Video, went into the drugstore, and did business with Mr. Joe Wyzer, who was the druggist in those days; he has since locomote on to the Rite Aid in Bangor. At the check emerge she picked up iodin of those little chocolates with marshmallow inside, this unrivalled in the frame of a mouse. I tack in concert it later, in her purse. I unwrapped it and ate it myself, academic session at the kitchen table with the contents of her red handba g spread out in wait of me, and it was corresponding victorious Communion. When it was byg angiotensin converting enzyme except for the adjudicate of chocolate on my tongue and in my throat, I come out into tear. I sat on that point in the litter of her Kleenex and light uponup and keys and half-finished rolls of Certs and cried with my hands everywhere my eye, the agency a kid cries.\r\nThe sinus inhaler was in a Rite Aid bag. It had cost twelve dollars and xviii cents. in that respect was around affaire else in the bag, similarly ?? an position which had cost twenty- ii-fifty. I looked at this some otherwise pointedness for a long m, compreh set aside it merely non infrastanding it. I was admirationd, maybe nevertheless stunned, solely the appraisal that Johanna Arlen Noonan efficacy possess been leading other life, one I k parvenue no topic astir(predicate), never crossed my drive cargon. not accordingly.\r\nJo odd the register, walked out into the bright, hammering fair weathershine again, swapping her regular specs for her prescription sunglasses as she did, and salutary as she stepped from beneath the drugstores slight beetle (I am imagining a little here, I dep shoemakers destination, crossing everywhere into the country of the novelist a little, scarce not by ofttimes; only by inches, and you can buoy per darlingrate me on that), there was that shrewish roar of locked tires on pavement that means theres qualifying to be either an accident or a very close exclaim.\r\nThis time it happened ?? the riddle of accident which happened at that dopey X-shaped intersection at least(prenominal) at once a workweek, it inflictmed. A 1989 Toyota was pulling out of the shopping-center arrange agglomerate and crook left onto Jackson Street. Behind the wheel was Mrs. Esther Easterling of Barretts Orc sturdys. She was att stamp outed by her friend Mrs Irene Deorsey, also of Barretts Orc toughs, who had shopped th e delineation store without large(p)ling any subject she cute to rent. besides such(prenominal) violence, Irene utter. Both women were cig arette widows. Esther could barely project missed the orange popularular plant life dump transport attack shoot the hill; although she denied this to the police, to the newspaper, and to me when I jawed to her some two months later, I think it in all probability that she yet now forgot to look. As my own produce (another cigarette widow) used to rate, ‘The two nigh common ailments of the elderly are arthritis and for generatefulness. They cant be held responsible for neither.\r\nDriving the Public puddles truck was William Fraker, of Old Cape. Mr. Fraker was thirty- eight long time old on the day of my married cleaning ladys goal, driving with his shirt off and thinking how naughtily he wanted a calm shower and a cold beer, not necessarily in that order. He and trio other men had spent eight hours coiffureting down asphalt make up out on the Harris Avenue annexe weedy the airport, a hot romp on a hot day, and placard Fraker verbalize yeah, he might hurl been going a little besides fast ?? maybe forty in a thirty-mile-an-hour zone. He was eager to get hind end to the ga fierceness, sign off on the truck, and get andtocks the wheel of his own F-150, which had air conditioning. Also, the dump trucks brakes, while entire bountiful to pass inspection, were a long bearing from tip-top condition. Fraker hit them as soon as he cut the Toyota pull out in front of him (he hit his horn, as well), but it was too late. He heard screaming tires ?? his own, and Esthers as she belatedly completed her danger ?? and saw her cause for precisely a upshot.\r\n‘That was the polish off part, somehow, he told me as we sat on his porch, drinking beers ?? it was October by then, and although the sun was unattackable on our g everyplacening bodys, we were both wearing sweaters. ‘Yo u jockey how high up you sit in one of those dump trucks? ‘ I nodded. ‘Well, she was sounding up to condition me ?? craning up, youd consecrate ?? and the sun was full in her face. I could see how old she was. I remember thinking, ‘ saintly shit, shes gonna break desire glass if I cant stop. only old raft are tough, much a beneficial deal than not. They can surprise you. I mean, look at how it glum out, both those old bid excretes fluent alive, and your wife . . . ‘\r\nHe stopped then, bright red color dashing into his cheeks, making him look manakinred a boy who has been laughed at in the school cause by girls who grant detect his fly is unzipped. It was comical, but if Id smiled, it only would form confused him.\r\n‘Mr. Noonan, Im sorry. My mouth just sort of ran forth with me.\r\n‘Its all right, I told him. ‘Im all everyplace the worst of it, any counsel. That was a lie, but it put us tail end on track.\r\n‘Anyw ay, he said, ‘we hit. There was a gimcrack bang, and a crumping sound when the drivers side of the car caved in. breakout glass, too. I was thrown against the wheel hard enough so I couldnt run a breath without it infracting for a week or more, and I had a braggy bruise right here. He drew an arc on his g everyplacenment agency just below the collarbones. ‘I banged my proposition on the windshield hard enough to crack the glass, but all I got up there was a little purple knob . . . no bleeding, not even a headache. My wife says Ive just got a naturally thick skull. I saw the woman driving the Toyota, Mrs. Easterling, thrown across the console between the front bucket seats. then we were finally stopped, all snarled together in the nitty-gritty of the street, and I got out to see how frightful they were. I signalise you, I expect to find them both dead.\r\nNeither of them was dead, neither of them was even unconscious, although Mrs. Easterling had three bro ken ribs and a dislocated hip. Mrs. Deorsey, who had been a seat away from the impact, suffered a concussion when she rapped her head on her window. That was all; she was ‘treated and released at position Hospital, as the Derry News always puts it in such cases.\r\nMy wife, the former Johanna Arlen of Malden, Massachusetts, saw it all from where she stood outside the drugstore, with her purse slung everyplace her berm and her prescription bag in one hand. Like Bill Fraker, she must ca-ca purpose the occupants of the Toyota were either dead or seriously hurt. The sound of the collision had been a hollow, authoritative bang which rolled by means of the hot heartfelt afternoon air exc citeeable a bowling ball down an alley. The sound of breaking glass inch it standardized jagged lace. The two vehicles were tangled violently together in the inwardness of Jackson Street, the dirty orange truck looming over the pale-blue import like a bul fraud parent over a cowering child.\r\nJohanna began to sprint across the pose lot toward the street. Others were doing the like all around her. peerless of them, Miss Jill Dunbarry, had been window-shopping at Radio Shack when the accident occurred. She said she thought she remembered tally past Johanna ?? at least she was beauteous sure she remembered someone in icteric slacks ?? but she couldnt be sure. By then, Mrs. Easterling was screaming that she was hurt, they were both hurt, wouldnt somebody second her and her friend Irene.\r\nHalfway across the put lot, near a little band up of newspaper dispensers, my wife fell down. Her purse-strap stayed over her shoulder, but her prescription bag slipped from her hand, and the sinus inhaler slid halfway out. The other item stayed put.\r\nNo one noticed her lying there by the newspaper dispensers; everyone was think on the tangled vehicles, the screaming women, the bed covering puddle of water and antifreeze from the Public Works trucks ruptured radiat or. (‘Thats gas! the clerk from Fast Foto shouted to anyone who would listen. ‘Thats gas, watch out she dont blow, fellas!) I suppose one or two of the ambitious rescuers might be possessed of jumped right over her, perhaps thinking she had fainted. To assume such a thing on a day when the temperature was pushing ninety-five degrees would not seduce been unreasonable.\r\nRoughly two 12 people from the shopping center agglomerative around the accident; another four-spot-spot dozen or so came trail over from Strawford Park, where a baseball granular had been going on. I imagine that all the things you would expect to hear in such situations were said, galore(postnominal) of them more than once. Milling around. person reaching through the misshapen old salt which had been the drivers-side window to pat Esthers trembling old hand. People immediately giving way for Joe Wyzer; at such moments anyone in a face cloth coat automati nattery becomes the belle of the b all. In the distance, the warble of an ambulance siren rising like shaky air over an incinerator.\r\n on the whole during this, lying unnoticed in the parking lot, was my wife with her purse still over her shoulder (inside, still wrapped in foil, her uneaten chocolate-marshmallow mouse) and her white prescription bag near one outstretched hand. It was Joe Wyzer, hurrying spinal column to the pharmacy to get a concretion bandage for Irene Deorseys head, who spotted her. He accept her even though she was lying face-down. He recognized her by her red hair, white blouse, and yellow slacks. He recognized her because he had waited on her not fifteen proceeding originally.\r\n‘Mrs. Noonan? he asked, forgetting all about the condensing bandage for the dazed but obviously not too badly hurt Irene Deorsey. ‘Mrs. Noonan, are you all right? sagacious already (or so I fly-by- puritanical; perhaps I am wrong) that she was not.\r\nHe bowl overed her over. It took both hands t o do it, and even then he had to work hard, kneeling and pushing and lifting there in the parking lot with the heat cook down from above and then spanking back up from the asphalt. Dead people put on weight, it seems to me; both in their flesh and in our minds, they put on weight.\r\nThere were red marks on her face. When I identified her I could see them clearly even on the delineation monitor. I started to ask the assistant medical exam examiner what they were, but then I knew. Late August, hot pavement, elementary, my dear Watson. My wife died getting a sunburn.\r\nWyzer got up, saw that the ambulance had arrived, and ran toward it. He pushed his way through the crowd and grabbed one of the attendants as he got out from so-and-so the wheel. ‘Theres a woman over there, Wyzer said, pointing toward the parking lot.\r\n‘Guy, weve got two women right here, and a man as well, the attendant said. He tested to pull away, but Wyzer held on.\r\n‘Never mind them right now, he said. ‘Theyre basically okay. The woman over there isnt.\r\nThe woman over there was dead, and Im evenhandedly sure Joe Wyzer knew it . . . but he had his priorities straight. Give him that. And he was persuade enough to get both paramedics mournful away from the tangle of truck and Toyota, in shock of Esther Easterlings cries of pain and the rumbles of protest from the Greek chorus.\r\nWhen they got to my wife, one of the paramedics was quick to confirm what Joe Wyzer had already suspected. ‘Holy shit, the other one said. ‘What happened to her?\r\n‘Heart, intimately likely, the first one said. ‘She got excited and it just blew out on her.\r\nBut it wasnt her heart. The postmortem examination revealed a brain aneurysm which she might cede been support with, all unknown, for as long as five years. As she sprinted across the parking lot toward the accident, that easy vessel in her cerebral mantle had blown like a tire, drowning her co ntrol-centers in blood and killing her. Death had in all likelihood not been instantaneous, the assistant medical examiner told me, but it had still come fleetly enough . . . and she wouldnt have suffered. Just one big black nova, all brilliance and thought gone(p) even beforehand she hit the pavement.\r\n‘Can I process you in any way, Mr. Noonan? the assistant ME asked, turning me gently away from the still face and closed eyes on the picture monitor. ‘Do you have questions? Ill answer them if I can.\r\n‘Just one, I said.\r\nI told him what shed purchased in the drugstore just before she died. Then I asked my question.\r\nThe days leading up to the funeral and the funeral itself are dreamlike in my shop ?? the clea succour memory I have is of alimentation Jos chocolate mouse and insistent . . . holler approximatelyly, I think, because I knew how soon the taste of it would be gone. I had one other crying fit a hardly a(prenominal) days after we buried h er, and I will tell you about that one shortly.\r\nI was glad for the arrival of Jos family, and particularly for the arrival of her oldest brother, candid. It was blackguard Arlen ?? fifty, red-cheeked, portly, and with a head of lush dark hair ?? who nonionic the arrangements . . . who wound up actually dickering with the funeral director.\r\n‘I cant believe you did that, I said later, as we sat in a stalling at Jacks Pub, drinking beers.\r\n‘He was assay to stick it to you, Mikey, he said. ‘I detest guys like that. He reached into his back pocket, brought out a hankie, and wiped absently at his cheeks with it. He hadnt broken down ?? none of the Arlens broke down, at least not when I was with them ?? but dog had leaked steadily all day; he looked like a man suffering from severe conjunctivitis.\r\nThere had been six Arlen sibs in all, Jo the youngest and the only girl. She had been the pet of her big brothers. I suspect that if Id had anything to do wit h her death, the five of them would have torn me isolated with their bare hands. As it was, they formed a protective shield around me instead, and that was nifty. I suppose I might have muddled through without them, but I dont know how.\r\nI was thirty-six, remember. You dont expect to have to bury your wife when youre thirty-six and she herself is two years young. Death was the uttermost thing on our minds.\r\n‘If a guy gets caught taking your stereo out of your car, they call it stealth and put him in jail, uncivil said. The Arlens had come from Massachusetts, and I could still hear Malden in Franks part ?? caught was coowat, car was cah, call was caul. ‘If the same guy is trying to sell a grieving husband a three-thousand-dollar jewel casket for forty-five hundred dollars, they call it business and ask him to speak at the round Club luncheon. Greedy asshole, I federal official him his lunch, didnt I?\r\n‘Yes. You did.\r\n‘You okay, Mikey?\r\nâ₠¬ËœIm okay.\r\n‘Sincerely okay?\r\n‘How the outlying(prenominal)e should I know? I asked him, loud enough to turn some heads in a nearby booth. And then: ‘She was pregnant.\r\nHis face grew very still. ‘What?\r\nI struggled to keep my voice down. ‘Pregnant. Six or seven weeks, match to the . . . you know, the autopsy. Did you know? Did she tell you?\r\n‘No! Christ, no! But there was a umbrageous look on his face, as if she had told him something. ‘I knew you were trying, of bleed . . . she said you had a low sperm count and it might take a little while, but the regenerate thought you guysd probably . . . sooner or later youd probably . . . ‘ He trailed off, look down at his hands. ‘They can tell that, huh? They check for that?\r\n‘They can tell. As for checking, I dont know if they do it automatically or not. I asked.\r\n‘Why?\r\n‘She didnt just secure sinus medicine before she died. She also bought one of those home pregnancy-testing kits.\r\n‘You had no nous? No clue?\r\nI agitate my head. He reached across the table and squeezed my shoulder. ‘She wanted to be sure, thats all. You know that, dont you?\r\nA refill on my sinus medicine and a piece of fish, shed said. Looking like always. A woman off to run a couple of errands. We had been trying to have a kid for eight years, but she had looked just like always.\r\n‘Sure, I said, patting Franks hand. ‘Sure, big guy. I know.\r\nIt was the Arlens ?? led by Frank who handled Johannas light off. As the generator of the family, I was depute the obituary. My brother came up from Virginia with my mom and my aunt and was allowed to tend the guest- script at the viewings. My amaze ?? almost all in all ga-ga at the age of sixty-six, although the doctors refused to call it Alzheimers ?? lived in Memphis with her sister, two years younger and only slightly less wonky. They were in charge of shrinkting the cake a nd the pies at the funeral reception.\r\nEverything else was arranged by the Arlens, from the viewing hours to the components of the funeral ceremony. Frank and Victor, the second-youngest brother, spoke brief tributes. Jos dad offered a prayer for his girlfriends soul. And at the end, Pete Breeddear, the boy who cut our grass in the summer and raked our yard in the fall, brought everyone to tears by recounting ‘Blessed Assurance, which Frank said had been Jos best-loved hymn as a girl. How Frank arrange Pete and persuaded him to sing at the funeral is something I never bring out.\r\nWe got through it ?? the afternoon and evening viewings on Tuesday, the funeral service on Wednesday morning, then the little pray-over at Fairlawn Cemetery. What I remember most was thinking how hot it was, how lost I felt without having Jo to talk to, and that I wished I had bought a new pair of shoes. Jo would have pestered me to death about the ones I was wearing, if she had been there.\r \nLater on I talked to my brother, Sid, told him we had to do something about our mother and Aunt Francine before the two of them disappeared carry throughly into the Twilight Zone. They were too young for a nursing home; what did Sid advise?\r\nHe advised something, but Ill be deuced if I know what it was. I concur to it, I remember that, but not what it was. Later that day, Siddy, our mom, and our aunt climbed back into Siddys letting car for the drive to Boston, where they would spend the night and then grab the southernmostern crescent(prenominal) the following day. My brother is happy enough to chaperone the old folks, but he doesnt fly, even if the tickets are on me. He claims there are no segmentation lanes in the sky if the engine quits.\r\n about of the Arlens left the next day. Once more it was dog-hot, the sun glaring out of a white-haze sky and lying on everything like melted brass. They stood in front of our house ?? which had become solely my house by then ?? wit h three taxis lined up at the curb behind them, big galoots caressing one another amid the litter of tote-bags and aphorism their goodbyes in those foggy Massachusetts accents.\r\nFrank stayed another day. We picked a big bunch of flowers behind the house ?? not those ghastly-smelling conservatoire things whose aroma I always tie in with death and organ-music but real flowers, the kind Jo liked best ?? and stuck them in a couple of coffee cans I comprise in the back pantry. We went out to Fairlawn and put them on the new grave. Then we just sat there for awhile under the beating sun.\r\n‘She was always just the sweetest thing in my life, Frank said at last in a strange, dumb voice. ‘We took care of Jo when we were kids. Us guys. No one messed with Jo, Ill tell you. Anyone tried, wed feed em their lunch.\r\n‘She told me a lot of stories.\r\n‘Good ones?\r\n‘Yeah, real good.\r\n‘Im going to miss her so much.\r\n‘Me, too, I said. ‘Fr ank . . . listen . . . I know you were her favorite brother. She never called you, maybe just to say that she missed a period or was aspecting whoopsy in the morning? You can tell me. I wont be pissed.\r\n‘But she didnt. Honest to God. Was she whoopsy in the morning?\r\n‘Not that I saw. And that was just it. I hadnt seen anything. Of course Id been writing, and when I write I pretty much trance out. But she knew where I went in those trances. She could have put in me and agitate me fully awake. Why hadnt she? Why would she hold in good news? Not absentminded to tell me until she was sure was plausible . . . but it somehow wasnt Jo.\r\n‘Was it a boy or a girl? he asked.\r\n‘A girl.\r\nWed had names picked out and waiting for most of our marriage. A boy would have been Andrew. Our daughter would have been Kia. Kia Jane Noonan.\r\nFrank, divorced six years and on his own, had been staying with me. On our way back to the house he said, ‘I devil abo ut you, Mikey. You havent got much family to fall back on at a time like this, and what you do have is far-off away.\r\n‘Ill be all right, I said. He nodded.\r\n‘Thats what we say, anyway, isnt it?\r\n‘We?\r\n‘Guys. Ill be all right.\r\nAnd if were not, we try to make sure no one knows it. He looked at me, eyes still leaking, handkerchief in one big discolour hand. ‘If youre not all right, Mikey, and you dont want to call your brother ?? I saw the way you looked at him ?? let me be your brother. For Jos saki if not your own.\r\n‘Okay, I said, respecting and appreciating the offer, also discerning I would do no such thing. I dont call people for help. Its not because of the way I was raised, at least I dont think so; its the way I was do. Johanna once said that if I was drowning at Dark Score Lake, where we have a summer home, I would die silently fifty feet out from the macrocosm beach rather than yell for help. Its not a question of love or affection. I can give those and I can take them. I feel pain like anyone else. I gather up to colligate and be touched. But if someone asks me, ‘Are you all right? I cant answer no. I cant say help me.\r\nA couple of hours later Frank left for the southern end of the state. When he capable the car door, I was touched to see that the taped book he was listening to was one of mine. He hugged me, then surprised me with a kiss on the mouth, a good hard smack. ‘If you need to talk, call, he said. ‘And if you need to be with someone, just come.\r\nI nodded.\r\n‘And be careful.\r\nThat ball over me. The combination of heat and grief had do me feel as if I had been living in a dream for the last few days, but that got through.\r\n‘Careful of what?\r\n‘I dont know, he said. ‘I dont know, Mikey. Then he got into his car ?? he was so big and it was so little that he looked as if he were wearing it ?? and drove away. The sun was going down by then . Do you know how the sun looks at the end of a hot day in August, all orange and somehow squashed, as if an invisible hand were pushing down on the top of it and at any moment it might just pop like an overfilled mosquito and splatter all over the horizon? It was like that. In the east, where it was already dark, thunder was rumbling. But there was no rain that night, only a dark that came down as thick and sulfurous as a blanket. All the same, I slipped in front of the word central processing unit and wrote for an hour or so. It went pretty well, as I remember. And you know, even when it doesnt, it passes the time.\r\nMy second crying fit came three or four days after the funeral. That sense of being in a dream persisted ?? I walked, I talked, I answered the phone, I worked on my book, which had been about eighty percent complete when Jo died ?? but all the time there was this clear sense of disconnection, a skin senses that everything was going on at a distance from the real me , that I was more or less phoning it in.\r\nDenise Breedlove, Petes mother, called and asked if I wouldnt like her to bring a couple of her friends over one day the following week and give the big old Edwardian pile I now lived in alone ?? rolling around in it like the last pea in a restaurant-sized can ?? a good stem-to-stern cleaning. They would do it, she said, for a hundred dollars fraction even among the three of them, and mostly because it wasnt good for me to go on without it. There had to be a scrubbing after a death, she said, even if the death didnt happen in the house itself.\r\nI told her it was a lovely idea, but I would pay her and the women she brought a hundred dollars each for six hours work. At the end of the six hours, I wanted the job done. And if it wasnt, I told her, it would be done, anyway.\r\n‘Mr. Noonan, thats far too much, she said.\r\n‘Maybe and maybe not, but its what Im paying, I said. ‘Will you do it?\r\nShe said she would, of cours e she would.\r\nPerhaps predictably, I found myself going through the house on the evening before they came, doing a pre-cleaning inspection. I guess I didnt want the women (two of whom would be complete strangers to me) finding anything that would embarrass them or me: a pair of Johannas silk panties stuffed down behind the sofa cushions, perhaps (‘We are often overcome on the sofa, Michael, she said to me once, ‘have you noticed?), or beer cans under the loveseat on the sunporch, maybe even an unflushed toilet. In truth, I cant tell you any one thing I was looking for; that sense of in operation(p) in a dream still held firm control over my mind. The clearest thoughts I had during those days were either about the end of the novel I was writing (the psycho killer had lured my heroine to a high-rise construction and meant to push her off the roof) or about the Norco Home Pregnancy Test Jo had bought on the day she died. Sinus prescription, she had said. Piece of fish f or supper, she had said. And her eyes had shown me nothing else I demand to look at twice.\r\nNear the end of my ‘pre-cleaning, I looked under our bed and saw an open paperbacked on Jos side. She hadnt been dead long, but few household lands are so dusty as the body politic of Underbed, and the light-gray coating I saw on the book when I brought it out made me think of Johannas face and hands in her lay ?? Jo in the Kingdom of Underground. Did it get dusty inside a coffin? Surely not, but ??\r\nI pushed the thought away. It pretended to go, but all day long it kept creeping back, like Tolstoys white bear.\r\nJohanna and I had both been face majors at the University of Maine, and like many others, I reckon, we fell in love to the sound of Shakespeare and the Tilbury Town cynicism of Edwin Arlington Robinson. Yet the writer who had bound us closest together was no college-friendly poet or essayist but W. somersault Maugham, that elderly globetrotting novelist-playwright wi th the reptiles face (always obscured by cigarette smoke in his photographs, it seems) and the romantics heart. So it did not surprise me much to find that the book under the bed was The woolgather and Sixpence. I had read it myself as a late teenager, not once but twice, identifying passionately with the character of Charles Strickland. (It was writing I wanted to do in the South Seas, of course, not painting.)\r\nShe had been using a playacting card from some defunct deck as her place-marker, and as I opened the book, I thought of something she had said when I was first getting to know her. In Twentieth-Century British Lit, this had been, probably in 1980. Johanna Arlen had been a fiery little sophomore. I was a senior, picking up the Twentieth-Century Brits simply because I had time on my hands that last semester. ‘A hundred years from now, she had said, ‘the pity of the mid-twentieth-century literary critics will be that they embraced Lawrence and unattended Ma ugham. This was greeted with contemptuously good-natured laughter (they all knew Women in Love was one of the superior damn books ever written), but I didnt laugh. I fell in love.\r\nThe compete card marked scallywags 102 and 103 ?? Dirk Stroeve has just discover that his wife has left him for Strickland, Maughams version of capital of Minnesota Gauguin. The narrator tries to buck Stroeve up. My dear fellow, dont be unhappy. Shell come back . . .\r\n‘Easy for you to say, I murmured to the room which now belonged just to me.\r\nI turned the page and read this: Stricklands bad calm robbed Stroeve of his self-control Blind rage seized him, and without knowing what he was doing he flung himself on Strickland. Strickland was taken by surprise and he staggered, but he was very strong, even after his illness, and in a moment, he did not exactly know how, Stroeve found himself on the floor.\r\n‘You singular little man, said Strickland.\r\nIt occurred to me that Jo was neve r going to turn the page and hear Strickland call the pathetic Stroeve a good story little man. In a moment of brilliant epiphany I have never forgotten ?? how could I? it was one of the worst moments of my life ?? I understood it wasnt a mistake that would be rectified, or a dream from which I would awaken. Johanna was dead.\r\nMy military capability was robbed by grief. If the bed hadnt been there, I would have fallen to the floor. We weep from our eyes, its all we can do, but on that evening I felt as if every revolve about of my body were weeping, every crack and cranny. I sat there on her side of the bed, with her dusty paperback copy of The moonshine and Sixpence in my hand, and I wailed. I think it was surprise as much as pain; in ill will of the corpse I had seen and identified on a high-resolution video monitor, in spite of the funeral and Pete Breedlove singing ‘Blessed Assurance in his high, sweet tenor voice, in spite of the graveside service with its ashes to ashes and dust to dust, I hadnt truly believed it. The Penguin paperback did for me what the big gray coffin had not: it insisted she was dead.\r\nYou funny little man, said Strickland.\r\nI lay back on our bed, crossed my forearms over my face, and cried myself to sleep that way as children do when theyre unhappy. I had an nasty dream. In it I woke up, saw the paperback of The Moon and Sixpence still lying on the coverlet beside me, and decided to put it back under the bed where I had found it. You know how confused dreams are ?? logic like Dal?? clocks gone so soft they lie over the branches of trees like throw-rugs.\r\nI put the playing-card bookmark back between pages 102 and 103 ?? a turn of the index finger away from You funny little man, said Strickland now and incessantly ?? and rolled onto my side, hanging my head over the edge of the bed, meaning to put the book back exactly where I had found it.\r\nJo was lying there amid the dust-kitties. A string of cobweb hung d own from the bottom of the calamity spring and caressed her cheek like a feather.\r\nHer red hair looked dull, but her eyes were dark and alert and baleful in her white face. And when she spoke, I knew that death had goaded her insane.\r\n‘Give me that, she hissed. ‘Its my dust-catcher. She snatched it out of my hand before I could offer it to her. For a moment our fingers touched, and hers were as cold as twigs after a frost. She opened the book to her place, the playing card fluttering out, and placed Somerset Maugham over her face ?? a obliterate of words. As she crossed her hands on her bosom and lay still, I realized she was wearing the blue dress I had buried her in. She had come out of her grave to hide under our bed.\r\nI awoke with a muffled cry and a poignant jerk that almost tumbled me off the side of the bed. I hadnt been asleep long ?? the tears were still damp on my cheeks, and my eyelids had that funny stretched feel they get after a bout of weeping. Th e dream had been so shiny that I had to roll on my side, hang my head down, and peer under the bed, sure she would be there with the book over her face, that she would reach out with her cold fingers to touch me.\r\nThere was nothing there, of course ?? dreams are just dreams. Nevertheless, I spent the rest of the night on the couch in my study. It was the right choice, I guess, because there were no more dreams that night. Only the nothingness of good sleep.\r\n'