'Til Death

She can't believe what the phone

is telling her. "What?" she repeats.

"What?" The husband of a close

childhood friend has died, suddenly;

his four-year-old found him, thinking

he was sleeping in Sunday morning.

By the third phone call she's weeping

openly. "I can't imagine it," she tells

her mother, but you know that's not

entirely true, because you saw the way

she looked at you when she said it.