The Boys of My Youth

grief

• Ten hours later she is dead. Oh God, it is bitterly cold. We have selected the Titanic with ivory satin and the vault with the million-year guarantee of no seepage.

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• We used to call her the face of love. She totters on her broomstick legs into the hallway… I sleep on my feet, in the cold of the doorway.

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trauma-and-survival

• I can take almost anything at this point. My vanished husband is neither here nor there; he's reduced himself to a troubled voice on the telephone three or four times a day.

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• He followed me from that convenience store. I will not move one inch over. If I do he'll have me off the road in an instant.

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self-and-identity

• Without their lipstick they look strangely weary, like pale replicas of their real selves. My cousin and I are floating in separate, saline oceans.

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• At this point in my life, I love Hal and the satin borders of blankets better than I love any of the humans I know.

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