Go Back
"I've never seen a dead body," said Vilna. "Can I come too?" "I don't see why not," said Abbie, and they went down to the morgue together. As Vilna and Abbie got into Abbie's little car, Diamond, the labrador jumped up at Vilna. Now there was mud all over Vilna's frilly white blouse. Vilna shoved the animal away with the side of her knee-high boot and then tried to get him in the crotch with a high heel.... "Poor dog," said Abbie. "Poor dog. He's lost his master. He's bound to be upset." But Vilna was too busy rubbing her twisted knee to reply.
In the grim light of death anyone who lives seems valuable. Though the light quickly fades and we are back to normal.
Perhaps what one mourned for people was that they were no longer there to observe the familiar things.
Death or divorce is so shattering: wrench out a piece of the whole and what's left is like a raw shank of beef hanging in the kitchen bleeding. The child feels it just as much.
Is this the money motive best expressed?
Here I am, a woman in my mid-forties, my life passing by; loved by a husband who loves me whatever I do, therefore able to do whatever I like and not lose income.
Is this the depth of mother - daughter separating
Oh, icy mother; remembrance of things past.
Diamond crouched at her feet, head on her lap, looking doleful. Perhaps he wanted food or missed Sascha. Or even, of course, dead Ned. Perhaps Diamond should go down, like everyone else, to view the body. But the cold in the morgue would get to his bones. It wouldn't be fair.