I picked up the corpse with a paper towel and took it outside. There was mist in the air. I tossed the little carcass into the trees. Other creatures would find it and eat it quick enough.

Later, when I went into Woodstock, I saw that the fog around my house was part of a layer of clouds caught between the peaks, hanging around, halfway down the hills, and it was clear down in the valleys and up above them. I understood quite clearly that it was beautiful. Once it would have moved me. I felt nothing.

The air had a definite chill in it. Distinct enough to say that snow would be coming soon, a matter of weeks, even days. Once that would have filled me with eagerness. Now it didn’t.

I was on the verge of losing my house. I couldn’t bring myself to care.

Inertia. My choice of choices. I could have been a TV ad with an elephant sitting on my head representing depression or some other mental disorder so as to sell a medication that would knock a pachyderm off a person.

The only thing I could bring myself to care about was the cats. They would need a new home.

I went into Bread Alone, automatically, because it’s what I always do. There were a couple of writers there that I knew. Shalom Auslander, sat at his usual spot toward the back. I asked him if he’d like two cats, excellent mousers, dedicated killers. He said, “I’m moving to L.A.” Larry Beinhart was sitting in his usual spot, at the other end, just opposite the Geezers. I told him I might be moving away and my two excellent cats needed a home. “If all a man‘s got left to care about is a dog,” he said, with emphasis on man, “that’s one thing. But if all a man‘s got to care about is a couple of cats, then he’s in big trouble.” It was snarky, but I think I agreed with him. The Geezers shook their various heads before I even said anything.

Was Madelaine still asleep? When she woke, what would she remember? What would she think? Would she still want her husband dead? Would she think she—we—would actually go ahead with it?