Resign?

Yes. Resign his brotherhood.

How would he do that?

I dont know. Turn around three times and say I denounce this bond of blood.

And then marry you.

And then marry me. Yes. Although you could say that the facts were a bit more raw than that.

Meaning that you wanted to have sex with your brother?

Meaning.

The stigma of incest had no meaning for you.

What do you want me to say? That I’m a bad girl? Who is Westermarck to me or me to Westermarck? I wanted to do it with my brother. I always did. I still do. There are worse things in the world.

You must have seen that this was something of a torment for him.

I know. I just hoped that he would come to his senses. That he would suddenly come to understand what he’d always known. I suppose I thought to shock him out of his complacency. I would hold his hand. I’d sit close against him driving home and put my head on his shoulder. I suppose I was shameless but then shame was not something I was really concerned with. I knew that I had only one chance and one love. And I wasnt wrong about his feelings. I saw the way he looked at me.

You’re so sure.

Yes. At spring break we’d gone to Patagonia Arizona to an inn there and I couldnt sleep and I went to his room and sat on his bed and I thought that he would put his arms around me and kiss me but he didnt. I hadnt known until that night that at its worst lust could be something close to anguish. I thought that something had changed at dinner but it hadnt. I’d become concerned that if I died he would think it his fault and that was a concern that was never to leave me. A friend once told me that those who choose a love that can never be fulfilled will be hounded by a rage that can never be extinguished.

Are you enraged?

I dont know. I know that you can make a good case that all of human sorrow is grounded in injustice. And that sorrow is what is left when rage is expended and found to be impotent.

Why dont we have some tea?

Is it that bad?

Just give me a minute.

Take your time. I’ll be looking at your notes.

Are you okay?

Yes.

All right. The fact that you own nothing.

Yes.

Might divesting yourself of everything be a way of preparing for death?

I dont think there is some way to prepare for death. You have to make one up. There’s no evolutionary advantage to being good at dying. Who would you leave it to? The thing you are dealing with—time—is immalleable. Except that the more you harbor it the less of it you have. The liquor of being is leaking out onto the ground. You need to hurry. But the haste itself is consuming what you wish to preserve. You cant deal with what it is you’ve been sent to deal with. It’s too hard.