Getting new carpeting in the bedroom tomorrow and moving out the loose objects lying about. Found the book I took with me when we drove Fyl to the hospital about 2 am on August 8, 2008. A highly regarded novel by a Glen Duncan called Death of An Ordinary Man. I had gotten up to the tenth page when she died. I looked on in stunned silence. Her lips were a vivid blue. Her eyes stared. Her skin a pallid white. They managed to revive her after a few minutes, a whole century’s worth of a few minutes, and her lips turned red, her eyes closed, her skin flushed crimson with fever. I remember sitting down again after an hour or so and opening the book. They’d had Lois cremated, the paragraph began. I distinctly remember thinking that I couldn’t read this just then, put the book aside and never did reopen it. Until just now, nearly a decade later, when I found it in a stack of books on the nightstand. I flipped it open to the bookmarked page, read that they’d had Lois cremated and closed the book again. Maybe later. Now I sit here staring at the words I’d just written, trying to forget.