“OK,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll recognize them.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought I had a few more weeks. I didn’t think I had much time, but I thought a few more weeks at least. Still, I’ve done almost everything. I’m probably forgetting something, but you’ll all figure it out.”

The cookies were on a plate but no one was eating them.

“When I’m gone, you should make sure that you get rid of my clothes and my personal things as quickly as you can. Don’t distribute my belongings to your friends or my friends or even to Janet. You don’t need to see them wandering around. I don’t care what you do with them, but get them out of here sometime this month. I know that it will be unpleasant, but it will be a relief to get them out. My jewelry should be left in the safe. It’s for my daughters-in-law. Don’t bury me with any of it, except my wedding ring; it would be a stupid waste. And don’t you boys give it to the first people you think you like. When you have real relationships that are forever, then you can give it to those people.”

We all nodded.

“Shall we go back to the bedroom?” asked my mother, and she stood up. As though in a trance, we all followed her.

She took off her bathrobe and got into bed. She arranged her pillows for the last time in that odd way she had of arranging her pillows, and she said she was a little bit cold, and asked for her blanket. It was that same blanket that she had kept taking to the hospital, the plaid blanket with the squares in different colors.

“What’s next?” she asked my father.

My father studied the booklet for a moment, though, in fact, he’d read it a thousand times and knew it almost by heart. “You’ve got to take the antiemetic,” he said.

“Freddy,” my mother said. “Go and get me a glass of water, would you?”

Freddy remembered the cookies. “No ice, no lime, sparkling water in a stem glass?” he asked.

“Thank you, Freddy,” she said. And he went and got the water, and my mother took the antiemetics.

“Now we have to wait about forty-five minutes,” said my father.

“Isn’t this strange?” said my mother. “Here we all are together again, going through all of this. I feel as though tomorrow we’re all going to be sitting together and talking about it, making it into a family routine about how we weathered another disaster. It seems so unreal to me, the idea that I’m not going to be here.” There was a strangeness in her voice. “I hope you’re not going to be angry at me about this,” she said. She looked at Freddy and she looked at me. “I think it’s best for me, and for you boys, and for you, Leonard.” She paused.

“Losing you can’t be best for me,” said my father.