Seven Lies (ARC)
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was an authority on the subject. And then later, when we had nearly
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moved on, when the conversation was almost forgotten, he would say,
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“I’m really glad we’re in agreement on that, Jane.” Even though my posi-
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tion hadn’t been altered at all but simply silenced by his volume and his 16
posturing and his overweening confidence.
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He would tap twice and in quick succession on the thin rim of his
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wineglass when it wanted refilling, but only when the bottle was at my
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end of the table, because I was seemingly unworthy of actual words. He
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would sometimes pick up my hand and unfurl my fingers and say, “You
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should really stop biting these, Jane.” And then later, toward the end of 22
the evening, when everyone’s eyes were shot with blood and alcohol
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and slipping shut with tiredness, he would say these things, vulgar
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things— always aimed elsewhere but always meant for me— like, “Prob-
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ably time for you to be getting Jane home, isn’t it?” and then he’d wink
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and say, “If you get my drift. Do you get my drift?” And we all did, and
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so we smiled and laughed. And yet every time something would sink
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lower within me. Because I hadn’t slept with anyone in three years, not
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since Jonathan, and the thought of another man’s hands on my skin
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made me bristle and wince.
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You see, the version of Charles that talked to everyone else, that
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charmed them, that laughed at their jokes? He was simply a disguise,
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a costume worn to conceal the truth. And he deceived them all: the men,
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in particular, but most of the women, too, who thought him handsome
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and carefree and charismatic.
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“So,” said Stanley, as we arrived at the bus stop. I stepped away from
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him and pretended to read the bus times printed against the concrete
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post. “So,” he repeated. “The plans?”
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I looked pointedly at my watch— it had been a present from Marnie—
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and still I said nothing.
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“We’re probably nearer yours, don’t you think?” he said.
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“Are we?” I replied. I ran my finger along the time sheet, the num-
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bers printed black on white paper, fixed between two panels of plastic.
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I tried to look relaxed and natural, as though this was something people
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often did and not a bygone act from a previous decade.
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“I reckon so,” he said. “Not much in it, but a bit closer to yours.”
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I continued pretending to read.
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I heard his footsteps against the concrete paving slabs, the weight of
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him approaching. His breathing was loud behind me, thick and steam-
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ing and scorched with alcohol, and I knew he was about to touch me.
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“Jane?” he said. He took another step toward me until he was stand-
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ing right behind me, and then he snaked his arms around my waist. He
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kissed the back of my head, wet and noisy, and I solidified myself, drill-21
ing my heels into the ground beneath me, fixing my breath and holding
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my body firm so that I didn’t flinch. He squeezed me— not particularly
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forcefully— but still I felt that my entire body was being strangled, that 24
I was suffocating.
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“How are— ” He cleared his throat. “Your place?” He stroked his
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right palm up and down over my stomach, the upward brushes climb-
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ing higher and higher with each movement until I could feel his fingers
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skimming the stiff wire at the base of my bra, until I could feel them
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reaching the smooth fabric above. “Jane, you and me . . .” He breathed
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into my ear, his words slurred and warm and moist.
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“Stanley,” I said, and I moved sideways, away from him, away from
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the concrete post. “Stanley, I’m afraid I’m not sure that there really is a 02
you and me.”
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“Oh,” he replied, slightly affronted but more confused than any-
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thing else. “But I— ”
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“It’s not you,” I said.
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He nodded solemnly. “Is this about your late husband?” he asked.
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He was confident again, sure that he had found the answer to some
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unasked question, sure that he knew the very ointment to ease this
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wound. “Marnie said— ”
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She would have warned him to be gentle, to be careful.
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“No, Stanley,” I said. “This isn’t about Jonathan.” Which was true.
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“And it’s not about you.” Which was also true, I suppose. “This really is 13
just about me.”
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A red double- decker rounded the corner, its lights bright against the
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night sky and, for once, entirely on schedule.
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“Do you think that maybe what you’re feeling is— ”
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“This has been lovely,” I interrupted, although I don’t know why I
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bothered because it was very clearly not even the slightest bit true.
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“And do feel free to keep in touch with Charles if that makes you happy.
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But I think this is probably it for now. In terms of a you and me. Sorry,”
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I said. “And goodbye.”
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I put out my left hand and the bus slowed, stopping beside me. I
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climbed aboard and, as the doors juddered shut, I offered Stanley an
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unnecessarily enthusiastic wave. He was still frowning as we pulled
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away.
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I have dated too many men in the years since Jonathan. I didn’t speak
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to another man for over a year. But everyone started to fret, to worry
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that I was being overwhelmed by my grief, and it felt important to reas-
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sure them that I was still an active participant in my own life. Because—
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and this is something else that we all learn eventually— everyone knows
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that a single woman who is not at the v
ery least in pursuit of romantic
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love is almost certainly entirely miserable.
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That’s a joke. You could smile.
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The truth is that I wasn’t looking for another love; it was too much
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to expect to find another great love in my otherwise underachieving
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life. I’d had Jonathan, and I couldn’t begin to imagine that another love 04
could ever come close to that one. And I had Marnie. And it made her
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happy to think that I was still looking, that I had faith, that I believed 06
in the goodness of the world.
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And yet I tried not to date any man for too long, hence my swift
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departure. Partly because I found them all— and that’s the truth: every
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single one— suffocatingly smug and wholly insufferable.
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And also, because a very small part of me worried that they might
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actually start to like me.
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Does that sound too smug? It isn’t meant to. Before Jonathan, I
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didn’t think that it was possible for someone to feel that way about me.
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I couldn’t believe that anyone would find that sort of love in someone
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so cheerless and so insecure. But Jonathan found things to like, things
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to love. He admired my competitive nature. He was impressed that I’d
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never lost a pub quiz. He thought it right that I was always early. He
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was amazed when I read a novel in a day. He loved that I was meticu-
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lous, a perfectionist, that I wanted to hang our pictures myself. And,
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eventually, I began to love those things, too.
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I didn’t want these men to fall in love with me because I knew that
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I could never fall in love with them. And I knew then— I still know—
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that rejection is a blister beneath the skin, a small hurt that can swell 24
into something far more significant.
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Is that an exaggeration?
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I don’t think it is.
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But this isn’t the time.
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I wish I could tell you that this would be an easy story to hear, but I
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don’t for a moment think that it will. There will be a lot of death this
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evening and I wish it were any other way, but I have promised the truth
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and this, finally, is a promise on which I can deliver.
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I am still unsure where this story really started— and I have no idea
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where it will end— but how to begin.
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A couple of years ago, Marnie and Charles were living together in
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their flat and I was dating men who were not my husband and my fam-
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ily life was complicated but manageable. Those are the foundations on
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which this story started. This is the story of how he died.
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Chapter Six
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k
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M
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ost women in their late twenties and early thirties like vari-
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ety, spontaneity, the chance to meet new people and do new
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things. That was never me. I have always been that eleven- year- old girl 14
cowering in a school corridor and anticipating rejection. I have never
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actively looked for friendships, and so I find myself with very few, but
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those that I do have really do matter.
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Because, you see, I had a friend. And none of the others— the pretty
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blondes in tight denim shorts that cut above the creases of their bums,
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the guys in loose jeans and hooded jumpers nestled together around
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a spliff, the sports stars in their tracksuits and trainers, the library
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girls in their glasses and blouses, the posh boys in their chinos and
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jackets— none of them compared. I didn’t need them and so I didn’t
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pursue them.
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I knew what I liked. I liked routine and repetition. I still do.
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And so the morning after I axed Stanley from my life, I went to visit
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my mother. She was living in a residential home in the suburbs and it
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always took at least an hour to get there. And, because I liked to arrive 28
no later than nine o’clock, so that I could be there for the beginning of 29
visiting hours, I would set an alarm before I went to sleep and then
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leave home early to catch one of the first trains of the day.
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The carriages were always quiet on a Saturday morning. There was
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normally a man in a suit, hungover from a Friday night that had rolled
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unexpectedly into a Saturday morning. There was often a woman with
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a pram, a new mother trying to fill the hours between wake and sleep
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and sleep and wake, hours that hadn’t existed a few months earlier.
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There were sometimes security guards, cleaners, nurses, all traveling
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home from night shifts. And there was always me.
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I saw Marnie every Friday evening and I went to visit my mother
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every Saturday morning.
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10
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The dayroom was at the front of the building and I passed it on my way 12
to my mother’s room. I tried not to peer inside, to focus only on her
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door at the end of the corridor, but it always pulled my gaze. It had an
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otherworldliness that was strangely magnetic. It was full of o
ld people
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in armchairs, some in wheelchairs, all with blankets draped over their
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legs. The carpet was every color, ornate and fiercely patterned. It re-
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minded me of the carpets in fancy hotels, where the managers were
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afraid of food stains and mud and makeup.
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Here, the patterns were similarly effective. They disguised dirt and
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vomit and, yes, food stains, but not from raucous three- course meals
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with laughter and gossip and wine, but from sticky, thick mashed po-
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tato flung deliberately onto the floor.
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Other than the multicolored carpet, the room itself was rather
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bland: empty beige walls, no photographs or pictures, no paintings or
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posters, and dark leather armchairs, easy to wipe clean. And yet the
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decor itself was really rather unimportant. This room was compelling
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not because of its specifics, but because of its inhabitants. It served as a 28
backdrop for a scene that depicted life and death and the thin periph-
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ery that existed between the two. Those people were half in and half
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out. Their hearts were beating and blood was trickling through their
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veins, but their souls were slipping, their minds melting, their bodies
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crumpled and broken. It was an eerie, uncanny place, a room full of
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people who were barely still people, of life that was almost not life, of 01
death that was not quite death. My mother never wanted to spend time
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in there and the nurses had long given up insisting.
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She was in her room instead and was sitting upright in bed when I
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arrived.
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I stood in the doorway and watched her, just briefly, as she fiddled
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with the bobbles sewn onto the blue woolen blanket draped over her
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duvet. She pulled the bedding up toward her chin and knotted her
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hands together and they bulged beneath the covers. The window was
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wide open and a cool breeze lifted the fabric of the curtains so that they 10
fluttered and cast a shadow against the wall.
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At sixty- two, my mother suffered from early- onset dementia. The
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doctors at her facility— when they visited, once a week; we rarely
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overlapped— had pointed out that she was at the older end of early
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onset, as though that was a revelation that should provide some com-
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