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Chapters (30)
  1. Title
  2. Dedication
  3. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. Chapter 1
  6. Chapter 2
  7. Chapter 3
  8. Chapter 4
  9. Chapter 5
  10. Chapter 6
  11. Chapter 7
  12. Chapter 8
  13. Chapter 9
  14. Chapter 10
  15. Chapter 11
  16. Chapter 12
  17. Chapter 13
  18. Chapter 14
  19. Chapter 15
  20. Chapter 16
  21. Chapter 17
  22. Chapter 18
  23. Chapter 19
  24. Chapter 20
  25. Chapter 21
  26. Chapter 22
  27. Chapter 23
  28. Chapter 24
  29. Chapter 25
  30. EPILOGUE

She nods, but I can tell from her face that I’ve lost her. You usually do, saying these things. At least when you’re talking to people who haven’t attended someone’s death. Not long ago I visited a gay man called William, who’d been a very good friend to Angelo, an AIDS patient I was seeing. When Angelo died, William was with him. “I’m so sorry,” I told William the next day, and he thanked me. Then he said, “It was glorious, at the end.” He looked at me and on his face was a mix of enlightenment and confusion. “It’s been like that every time,” he said. “You know?” And I said yes, I did.

Chapter 15

It’s Thursday, the two-week anniversary of Chip and me living together. This is how I think of it, though I never would admit that to anyone. We’ve developed a comfortable routine. Once in a while he comes with me to visit patients, but more often I drop him and Frank off at our little downtown on my way to work. He reads the paper in the mornings at the Time Out coffee shop, though increasingly he is having trouble focusing. He has lunch at Ned’s, and then sits out in the common for the afternoon, or goes to the reference room at the library and looks at random books, magazines, and newspapers. When I come home, we cook dinner together or go out to eat, and he tells me things he’s learned. Such as: The mourning cloak butterfly survives the winter almost completely exposed, belly up against the bark of a tree. A ninety-nine-year-old woman named Giovanna still bakes pizzelle every morning—despite macular degeneration and severe arthritis, she hangs her cane over a kitchen chair, puts an apron on over her sweatsuit, and goes to work. In Upper Volta, crocodiles are venerated because it is believed that they are spirits of the departed, protecting their former village.

I sit there when he tells me these things, taking it all in, wondering at his ability to remember, wondering, actually if he is remembering it, or if he is making some of it up. It doesn’t matter. The stories are wonderful pieces of information that say so much more than they say. As a child, I would lean over my microscope for long periods of time, then rest my chin on my hands, smiling. This is that, again.