I concentrated on her, tried to imagine what it might be like now, what she might be thinking about. I had never known her enough; all of her life she had invented ways to prevent people knowing her. I do not think, for example, that England mattered to her at all. Nor do I think my father mattered. What mattered to her were those years between the ages of twenty-five and forty, how quickly they had slipped away, how hard it was that she could not reclaim them. And I mattered to her, and she must have known, she must have known that I was in the room, that I was holding her hand. At some point in those days before she died, she must have recognized me, she must have seen me, but she gave no sign. Everything came from inside her, from dreams and memories and strange urges which made her breath quicken and her body shake. I wish that she had died a peaceful death, but it was not like that at all. Whatever was locked inside her was never released, it did not die with her, and it remains somewhere in the shadows of this apartment; it remains inside me, and I do not know how to get rid of it.

Her shaking became violent for half an hour and then she relaxed. I gave her something to drink and the two pills she took three times a day, but she could not swallow. She almost began to make sense, but I could not make anything out fully. Something like “she away” or “she way,” but more like grunts than words. And then she died. It was hard to tell at what moment this happened, when there was life and when there was no life. Her mouth was open and her eyes seemed alive, but there was no breath and no pulse. Maybe she could still hear and I should have said something then, maybe I should have told her that I loved her and I was grateful to her and I would be all right, but I kept my finger and thumb on her pulse to see if it would start up again. It did not. It was easy to close her eyes and close her mouth.

I did not know how long it would take for her body to become rigid. I decided to stay with her for a while. I wanted to lie beside her. I held her hand. I looked at her face, trying to make sure that I would always be able to remember what she looked like. The room was absolutely still. I was afraid to open the door, to return to the real world. I wanted to postpone any move, I wanted to let the minutes go by, minute by minute by minute my mother’s soul was seeping out of her until there was nothing. I let time pass.