456 days, 20 hours, 14 minutes, 11 seconds

So it’s 4:30 in the morning again, 1:30 in California, and she’s spreading moisturizer on her legs and thinking how she really has to call her uncle. He turned 90 on the fourth of July and they’d planned on going out there before all hell broke loose. And she hasn’t had the nerve to call and explain. Another cousin who was there just died of stomach cancer. Cancer men. Her uncle, Charles, Ron. She finds their smiles irresistable. The cream on her legs is soothing now, until she notices all the scabs behind her left leg, starts to pick at them. And she thinks of unions.