591 days, 3 hours, 48 minutes, 5.8 seconds

Boy, it's good to see this guy back, her husband says, sprawling on the downstairs couch, the Yankees game on tv . This guy is Bobby Murcer, former player, now broadcaster.

591 days, 9 hours, 9 minutes, 18 seconds

She blow-dries her hair. Not wanting to get sick again. And thinks again of Tony Blair spending over $3000 on makeup. In recent news, a principal is in trouble over dragging a high school boy to a barber shop. A straight-A student is expelled from 8th grade because of her hair color. And a four-year-old is banned from pre-school because of pink hair. She thinks how not much has changed in the past fifty years, not really. Except maybe that parents go to bat for their kids. In their first correspondence in the three weeks she's been sick, her father reiterates that he wants a plain pine coffin, nothing fancy. He also might have paid for the funeral in advance, but he can't remember.

591 days, 9 hours, 32 minutes, 54 seconds

No more tears, no more tangles, no more stitches, no more dried blood. Looking in the third drugstore, she comes up with L'oréal Kids extra gentle shampoo – no knots! More conditioning! With a burst of watermelon. For thick, curly, or wavy hair. She'd been hoping for Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo, but God knows if they even make that these days. Watermelon, evident the moment she opens the cap, she decides is enough of a reminder.

591 days, 15 hours, 9 minutes, 37 seconds

A stitch in time saves nine. She wakes up confident all the pain's from the stitches. Coming out today. And not stitches, staples. She probably shouldn't have fought so hard all her life to be writer, not woman. All her teenage angst catching up with her. And her mother dead, and her father dying. No one else to blame. Unless you count Bush, of course.