What's What

HE WAS dying, that was the first thing. The first thing was that she was dying. She was thirty-four, and it was the sunset of her life, though both of them still had the teenager's belief that death would pass them by. In the hospital, she said to her husband that she just wanted him to be happy. A lie. But she'd be dead by the time he figured out what happiness was, so it was a lie detached from consequence. After I die…, she'd think. It became her constant refrain, her internal mantra. There