like that; costume jewelry, clothes, unsealed bottle of perfume, and her computer and portable phone — to some organization like Purple Heart. Sure, Purple Heart, that’s the one they always called for a donation pickup if it didn’t call them first to say its truck would be in their area on such and such a date. His watch he never put on today, which is unusual for him, he thinks, and is still where he left it on the night table last night, and he has a handkerchief in his pants pocket. He takes it out, blows his nose into it, folds over the wet part, and drops it on top of the watch. And he once, maybe a week after Gwen died, tried sleeping on her side of the bed. He thought that because she was much lighter than he — about fifty pounds, and after her first stroke, sixty to sixty-five — the mattress might not have as much of a depression on her side as it does on his, but he found it uncomfortable, or some other word, lying there. Like the eyeglasses case: just because it had been her side and all that’s attached to that. He’ll probably never even take the glasses out of their case. Doesn’t want to see them again and picture them on her face. As for her side of the bed: making love with her there (they never seemed to do it on his side or in the middle of the bed or not after her first stroke); turning her over and changing or straightening her pad; massaging her shoulders when he got her on her stomach; exercising her legs and feet every morning and night when she was on her back, and catheterizing her periodically or whenever she couldn’t pee on her own and was risking getting a urinary tract infection. Leaning over her, after he got her set for sleep, and kissing her, if she wasn’t angry at him or hurt by something he said that day, and saying “Sleep well” or “Sweet dreams” and “Goodnight.” Then he’d kiss her and shut off her night table light. But all on her side of the bed, he’s saying. Though some of those — turning her over away from him to massage her shoulders or change the towel underneath her or straighten her pad — a little to the middle of the bed. Anyway, tried resting every which way that one time on her side of the bed, but nothing worked. They have the kind of mattress — but how does he say it now? He has the kind of mattress that isn’t supposed to be turned over. Though they were advised by the saleswoman when they bought it to turn it a hundred-eighty degrees around every three to four months so no one side of it gets unevenly depressed. He never did it because he either didn’t want to mess up the bed and have to remake it or he didn’t feel like doing it on the days he thought of it or Gwen asked him to do it or he felt he didn’t have the strength at that moment to move a big heavy mattress around by himself, and after they had the new mattress set for a year or so — which would be about nine months after her first stroke — because he didn’t want her lying in the depression his body had made. So he did do some nice unasked-for things for her now and then. Of course he did, several a day. Just, they were heavily outweighed by the many instances of his rage and other awful behavior to her since a little after she got sick, and which made her look at him sometimes as if she hated him. “What I do this time?” he’d say. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry.” She usually just kept looking at him. “All right, I know what I did,” he’d say. “You don’t have to look at me as if I’m the worst shit on earth, and I’ll try not to let it happen again.” “That’s what you always say,” she said a number of times. “Your words aren’t to be trusted anymore. It’d be absurd (ridiculous, idiotic) of me to believe you can change.” “Believe, believe, because the last thing I want is to hurt you,” and he tried to hug her a few of those times and she pushed him away or she let him but never hugged him back. He sometimes thought right after: She’ll get over it and he will try not to act like that again. He just has to work on it: see it coming and stop it fast. Do that a couple of times straight and he should have the problem licked. That time they bought the mattress set. A good day for them. They went together — she drove — tested several mattresses in the store: he did it quickly: on and off in about ten seconds and without lying back on the beds: he thought he’d look silly. She lay back on each mattress she tested, turned over on her side, then on her other side, then on her back with her arms out, shut her eyes, looked like she was sleeping, even made snoring sounds once as a joke, causing the saleswoman and him to laugh, and finally, with one mattress, said while lying on her back with her hands behind her head: “I like this one; firm but not hard, and within our price range. What about you?” And he said “You choose, because they all seemed the same to me.” “No, they’re each a little different: soft, firm, rock hard, so I want you to feel as good with the one we buy as I do. Try this one again, but this time lie on it,” and he said “I don’t have to; I know it’s good on your say-so. And I never have trouble sleeping on anything, soft, hard or lumpy, so if this is the mattress you want, let’s get the woman to write up a ticket and we’ll get out of here.” “You’re so easy to please,” and he said “Thank you. But you know me: I hate shopping for anything but food,” when he should have said “No, I can be a horror.” But he was much less of one then, right? It was her illness that did something to him and he got worse and worse. He became so goddamn…ah, it’s old news. He has to stop thinking about it. He has to stop thinking about it. After, they had lunch at a Mexican fast-food restaurant next door and then lattes and a biscotti between them — little bits of chocolate and walnut in it, his latte with skim milk, hers with soy — at a coffee place in the same shopping center. Only drinks sold in the restaurant were sweetened iced tea and soda. “We ought to do this more often,” she said when they were back in the car, she at the wheel again, he reading a book in his lap, “Go out for lunch or just coffee, take a break from work at home.” “Deal,” he said, and went back to his book. Someone knocks on the door. “Yes?” he says, and one of his daughters says “It’s me, Daddy. Just seeing how you’re doing.” And he says “I’m fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine. I’m going to take a nap.” “I didn’t wake you from one, did I?” and he says — it’s Maureen, he’s almost sure—“No, I’ve just been resting. We’ll go out for dinner tonight after the house is cleaned up, okay?” and she says “Good, we have no plans. Would it be all right if we invite three of our friends along? I don’t know if you noticed, but they came to the memorial — drove down together from New York this morning — and I don’t think it’d be right to just leave them like that.” “Sure,” he says, “invite anyone you want, and our treat. Very nice of them to come so far for it. They can even sleep over if you two don’t mind doubling up and you bring out the futon. Are they all girls? You’ll work it out. But we’ll eat Chinese, to keep the cost down, when before I thought we’d go to Petit Louis — okay?” and she says “Of course. I’ll tell them of your sleepover offer, but I think they want to get back tonight so they can be at work tomorrow.” “Maybe, then, you want to drive back with them — I’ll be okay alone,” and she says “We planned on staying two more days — that is, if you don’t mind us to,” and he says “What are you, kidding? I’m thrilled that you’re staying.” “And if you’re still napping by six, can I wake you so they can start off around eight?” “Sure, wake me, but I’ll be up. And forget the Chinese. What do I care about the expense? We’ll all go to Petit Louis. Make a reservation for six-thirty,” and she says “Let’s stick with Chinese. It’ll be quicker and Petit Louis is where we went most to celebrate our birthdays and New Year’s Eve once and your wedding anniversary a few times, even the twentieth, I remember. It’s too loaded. Have a good nap, Daddy.” “Yeah.” Did he turn off the phone ringer? Thinks he did. Doesn’t want to be jarred out of a nap. The twentieth. That’s when they had their best meal there. Told them to order what they want, don’t worry about the cost, it’s a special anniversary, by all rights they should be at a more opulent place but this will do, and he got a good bottle of wine, not the least expensive French red on the wine list, which is what he always did, though the least expensive of the various categories of red they have there are always good. She had filet mignon, said she feels like she wants a very rich piece of beef. “Strange, huh?” But she’s been a good girl, she said, with no red meat for several years, and what harm is one small portion of meat going to do her? And he, what’d he have? Oh, something with scallops and a plate of pâtés and crab soup to start with and a crème brûlée, when he usually had the croque monsieur or slice of quiche or some other less expensive dish, even on his birthday, and took a little from the appetizers and desserts the others had. So he has two hours. Enough time to rest, and he assumes everyone but his daughters and their three New York friends will be gone when he gets up. Suppose someone needs to use the bathroom here because the other one’s occupied? Just don’t answer. Does he want to be with their friends? Not much. Actually, not at all, but what’s he to do? Wants to make his kids happy. Does he want them around for two more days? Rather be alone, doing anything he wants, not worrying about having enough food in the house and getting them dinner and what time to sit down for it and so on. Drinking as much as he wants and falling asleep sloshed if that’s what it ends up being. But he has to do what they want and not anything to make them worry about him. He does, they might think of staying longer or urge him to speak to someone like a psychotherapist, something he definitely doesn’t want to do. All right, he knows he’s depressed, but whatever his problem, it’ll go away. He just wants to sit in his armchair in the living room and put on whatever music he wants, or not put any on, no music and none of theirs from their rooms or the TV or DVD going. Just silence except for things like the washer or dryer running in the kitchen or the cat’s tapping toenails on the wood floor as he crosses the room, and fix himself a drink and read the