602 days, 5 hours, 29 minutes, 37 seconds

She can't help thinking about her aunt. 1952 or 1953. Forty years old. Dying. No one ever mentioned the C word, just as, in those days, doctors told the families but not the patients. The point was don't let them know they're dying, give them hope, give them strength to live. Nettie knew. Convinced she was dying of lung cancer, that she'd brought this on herself, smoking two packs a day. It wasn't lung cancer, though. She thinks it was breast cancer.

602 days, 5 hours, 46 minutes, 54 seconds

Memorial Day. Which of course makes her wonder if a year from now there will be people visiting her grave. Placing stones or flowers. They've decided they want to be buried in Rhode Island, because his family is larger, because she's closer to his family. His father sends them a photo of himself standing by where his wife is buried, showing the two plots next to it: theirs. They haven't told her father yet.

They haven't told her father about being sick, or about the hospital.

Memorial Day. In 1991, just before her one other major surgery, they decided to go to Washington for the weekend. Originally thought they'd drive down, then decided to take a train, then decided to take an earlier train home. Temperatures in the nineties. The weekend from hell.

Ten years later, after the first breast cancer, they decided on a trip to Nova Scotia. Another hellish journey. But nothing so frightening as this next trip across town. Or his coming back from there, alone.