You make me feel so brand new. I'm still not very good at holding my liquor, though." "But you're good at getting it all over." I raised my eyebrows, but he just shook his head at me and moved his hand away. "I won't be sorry for this," I said. "I mean it." He gave a quiet laugh. "Thank you." As I lay back down, I listened to the crickets chattering in the warm night. I could tell that the crickets were saying things I couldn't understand. The crickets were talking to each other in a language I didn't understand, and I couldn't understand them. I closed my eyes and felt myself begin to drift, and before long I was asleep again. When I woke up, Alex was gone. I felt completely normal—no headache, no nausea, just the normal feeling you get when you wake up from a long night of drinking and smoking weed, the feeling that you are still floating on the surface of a deep pond, but that you are no longer weighed down by the gravity that keeps your feet on the bottom. I felt as though I had broken through the surface. There was a faint light coming in the window, and when I pushed myself up, I could see that there was a grayish glow in the sky outside. It was still dark, and the stars had not yet set. I thought about how easy it had been to get high and to have sex, even though we had both been drunk. I thought about those stupid, giggling college kids outside, their heads leaning back as they lit their cigarettes. And I realized that this was the first time that I'd had sex since my husband had died. I still didn't understand why I'd done it, why I'd gotten drunk with Alex and let him have sex with me, but there had been something in the moment that had made me want to forget. That's the only way to describe it. But I wasn't sad that Alex was gone. I didn't think I would ever see him again. # 9 A couple of hours later, I got up and went to the bathroom to get a drink of water. I left the door open, and the cold wind began to blow right into the bathroom. Outside, it must have been ten or eleven degrees. The snow was still coming down in big soft flakes, but it wasn't sticking on the ground anymore. Back in the house, the night was quiet again. I went into the living room and listened for a while, but I couldn't hear Alex. The front door was still open, so I went out to look for him. It was no longer snowing—it was dark, and I could hardly see in the darkness. The streetlights flickered. Somewhere down the hill, there were sirens—maybe someone had driven into the ditch, or something like that. There were no other cars on the street. A car was passing in front of me, and I was just about to call out for Alex when I heard the sound of someone walking through the snow. I stood still for a moment and listened, and then I turned and looked up the hill, to where I had left Alex. It took me a moment to find him. The streetlights gave off a weak glow, and I couldn't see very well, but I didn't need to see clearly to know that someone was walking towards me. I don't know how long it had been since I'd come outside, but it felt as though it had been hours. He had walked further down the hill than he had the night before. It must have been about twenty feet, and at first I could hardly see him at all. His head was bent, and he seemed to be wearing all black, with a black sweater that came down to his knees. I stepped closer to the edge of the sidewalk. At first I thought he was just someone walking, but then he began to move and I saw his face. It was Alex, but he was completely white, and I could see his lips moving as he looked at me. I thought that if I turned and ran into the house he might follow, but he didn't come over the rise. I tried to call out to him, but I couldn't make my voice work. When he got close enough, I saw his eyes—they seemed to be white as well, but with no pupils. I thought he might be some kind of ghost, but then I realized he was wearing a dark hat and carrying a dark raincoat. I realized that this must be Alex, and that the Alex I knew was probably asleep in the bed upstairs. But I didn't know how he had gotten changed so quickly. Alex came over to the side of the house where I was standing, but he didn't walk by. He stood in the snow for a moment, and then he stepped forward. The snow must have been three feet high, and he walked right over it. When he reached me, he stopped. I thought he was going to hug me or something, but instead he laid his hands on my shoulders. Then he looked right into my eyes. He looked so lost that I started to cry. I remember thinking that I had probably never seen anyone so lost in my life. When Alex had begun walking across the street, the wind had almost seemed to die down, but now it began to blow again, and I felt a blast of cold on my face. At first I didn't know what it was. I thought it was my imagination, but then I realized that I was crying. I looked up and saw Alex staring at me through the snow. I started to call out to him, but I could not make my mouth work, and then he began to pull away from me. Before he disappeared completely, he looked at me one last time, and then he walked away. When he got to the other side of the street, he disappeared from view. # 10 I stepped back from the edge of the porch and closed the front door behind me. I sat down in the rocking chair and smoked a cigarette. The streetlights were all out, and there was no wind blowing. I was listening to the sound of the snow blowing in through the cracks in the window, and I began to think about Alex. I didn't understand what had happened, but I knew I needed to get out of there. When the front door opened, I thought it was going to be Alex, but it was Anna. She was wearing a pair of snow boots, and she wore a blue sweater that was as big as a blanket. I noticed that her nails were chipped from cleaning the stove. She went back inside without saying anything. When she was halfway down the hall, she stopped and turned back to look at me. I had the radio turned up loud, and I was singing along with the song, which was hard because of my cold, but it didn't seem to matter. Anna looked like she didn't know what to do. She was standing there in the hallway, with snow in her hair and in her eyebrows, and with her dark eyes she seemed almost blind. It was one of the few times that I can remember feeling sorry for her, even though she was my brother's wife, even though it was probably her fault that it had happened. "She's back," she said. "I saw her walking past the house." "What did she say?" "She said she was sorry." Anna crossed her arms over her chest and looked at me. "Is this some kind of punishment?" I shook my head. "No." "You going back to bed?" "Yes." Anna walked over to the bed and sat down in the chair. She kept her eyes on mine as she pulled the blanket over herself. "Then I guess this means you don't have to clean the kitchen for a while." # 11 The next day, after Anna and I had eaten, I walked down to the store. I wanted to buy some beer, but I knew that they wouldn't sell it to me unless I showed my driver's license. If I told them my license had been suspended, it would just be an excuse for them to turn me away. When I got back to the house, I found Anna standing in the kitchen. Her hair was pinned up and she was wearing a black blouse and red skirt. It was her church clothes. "I told you to take care of yourself." She shook her head and walked over to the table, where I was sitting. "Why don't you wear a coat?" "I don't have time to worry about that." I put the beer down on the table. "Why don't you eat with me?" Anna got up and looked at the refrigerator. "I don't know what there is to eat." "I have a sandwich," I said. "Do you want some peanut butter?" "Do you think I have time to sit and eat?" "That's what sandwiches are for." I went over to the refrigerator and took out a can of ravioli. I opened it and gave it to her. "You should come with me." Anna looked around the kitchen, and then she shook her head again. "You don't know what I do, what I can do, to be in this house. You know what I've done, but I don't know what you've done, not even in the hospital. You're not even a real nurse