A fixed afterimage appeared behind her eyelids in which what was actually dark appeared light and what was actually light appeared dark. She saw Heinrich walk down the street and turn back, as he always did, to wave one last, one very last time. Selma looked at the image on the inside of her eyelids, at the stopped motion of the very, very last wave, the frozen smile, and Heinrich’s dark hair was light and his light eyes very dark.

Selma lay there for a long time. Then she lifted me back over her shoulder. She swayed briefly and her heart stepped to the right. As she stood, Selma pulled the blanket from the bed, dragged it behind her until it covered Palm’s stomach and legs. She let go.

“You have to put her down for a bit,” the optician said.

“I should examine her,” my father said.

“She should eat something,” my mother said.

“You’re already all crooked,” Marlies said.

“You should eat something, too,” Elsbeth said.

Everyone said something, except for me, Palm, and Alaska.

“She won’t let go,” Selma said. And: “She’ll wake soon.” And: “She’s not very heavy.” That last one was a lie. I was as heavy as a boulder.

Selma decided to do exactly what she always did, because otherwise she’d run the risk of never doing anything again, and at some point, as with the dead retired mailman, her blood and mind would congeal, she’d die or go crazy, neither of which Selma could afford to do at the moment.

Because it was Thursday and that’s what she did every Thursday, she turned on her television series. I slept on her lap. In the series, at the very beginning, a completely unknown man in a very good mood entered the gate of the Victorian manor house and was greeted by Melissa as Matthew, even though he was not Matthew. Selma scooted closer to the screen and opened her eyes wide, but it truly wasn’t Matthew. He just vaguely resembled him. Apparently the actor who had played Matthew didn’t want to anymore, or had been hired away to another series, or had died and so at the last minute they’d had to find someone similar to play Matthew.

Selma turned off the television and started writing a letter to the producer. She wrote that this was not acceptable. She wrote that if someone had died or been hired away, he couldn’t simply be replaced by someone else who pretended to have always been Matthew. One shouldn’t stoop to such cheap solutions, not even on American-Victorian landed estates. It’s undignified.

Selma offered her explanation over three closely written pages. Then the optician came over and found Selma at the kitchen table, writing her letter with me across her lap like a blanket. Selma looked up at him and he handed her a handkerchief.