657 days, 13 hours, 59 minutes, 38 seconds

The distinct sound of the woodpecker hitting his beak against a tree by her pond upstate. How she used to love to sit and watch and listen. Then she grew afraid about Lyme disease. Then his father got Babesiosis, spread by a tick native to Rhode Island, and almost died, and almost destroyed his recent second marriage. Then he, her husband, understood her fears.

657 days, 21 hours, 32 minutes, 15 seconds

Opening Day all over again. But if Congress won't give him money to send more troops to Iraq, and if they insist upon questioning his staff under oath, and if they keep calling for Gonzalez's Hispanic testicles on a platter, then he'll be damned if he'll play ball. He sits behind that great big desk, hand hovering above the red button, sulking. And her? She's left batting his head around, wracking up more countries than she can name. Except she's not very focused today.

660 days, 9 hours, 27 minutes, 19 seconds

660. All morning that number's been haunting her. Area code? Zip code? At last she looks it up, sees it's the area code for central Missouri. Central Missouri State University. Where a friend taught was until this year. An associate professor with tenure and his two children were born at home with a midwife because the school didn't pay enough toward medical insurance. Not to mention the paltry salary. He gave up tenure to get the hell out of their. Look at his wife's family – the number of amputated limbs that could be chalked up to poor medical care. They'd had custody of her daughter but had to leave her with the father when they moved. Missouri makes it all but impossible to take a child out of state. The personal. The political.

660 days, 10 hours, 29 minutes, 10.7 seconds

In line at the coffee shop. The two youngest children wander farther into the dining room. Then the youngest pulls away. His sister tries to lure him back, calls to someone, then leaves him alone to drag an older sister over. The mother smiles. In all, there are four children. They get a table. The mother carries the youngest now.

661 days, 11 hours, 39 minutes, 36 seconds

She knew she didn't want a marriage like her parents had. They didn't fight, didn't cheat on each other. They would have called this a good marriage. But she wanted more. And it took being away from home for fifteen years before she started looking beyond that, looking at three friends in particular who had long term relationships that she could envision for herself. Then, twenty years ago, her mother had a stroke, and she and her lover flew to California. All her father wanted to do was sit by her mother's bedside. On the plane home, she asked her then-lover-later-husband if he envisioned himself ever caring about her that much.

661 days, 20 hours, 45 minutes, 17 seconds

So she gets in bed and finds him lying on his back, snoring, and leaving her barely room to scrunch against the wall. She's obviously not able to sleep this way. She gets up, showers, tests her blood again: 133. With love, all things are possible.

661 days, 21 hours, 22 minutes, 41 seconds

Twelve years ago a friend and his wife sat on her sofa and talked of their daughter's upcoming wedding. She forgets the exact context now, probably she was questioning if this was the match made in heaven. And she answered that she'd prefer her daughter marry and divorce than not to marry, how much easier it was for a divorced woman to get jobs, and to attract other men. Something like that.

And, probably that same day, these parents talked of how they thought they had a solid marriage, but they'd never really had to put it to the test.

The daughter married that May. The father died in July. After that she lost touch.

661 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes, 1 seconds

Can you think of any better time than your anniversary to get your head shot up with poison? Insurance will pay for the doctor, not the poison. Which is more than they did a year ago. She likes to tell people she married him for his apartment and his medical insurance.

661 days, 21 hours, 46 minutes, 40 seconds

169. Her blood should be under 140. She knew she was pushing the envelope tonight. Anyway, while she's waiting up she decides to write to S. Happy anniversary.

661 days, 22 hours, 26 minutes, 31.7 seconds

She can't go to bed yet. She had chocolate mousse for dinner (actually they called it chocolate mini-mousse) and the longer she stays up the lower her blood count will be. It's that simple.

661 days, 23 hours, 0 minutes, 18.6 seconds

Don't ever get married, it will spoil your relationship, she told her closest friend thirty years ago. And S. repeated this comment at the wedding party she and her husband threw for them. Then two years ago, March 30th, midnight, the stroke of their anniversary, she was on the phone with S., the first time they'd spoken in years. S. was in the middle of a divorce. She'd lost all track of time.

661 days, 23 hours, 14 minutes, 3 seconds

He announces he's dying an Ambien death, and crawls into bed. He didn't get the watch at midnight, he tells her, it was closer to two in the morning. Did they really stay up that late? They were idiots and they stayed up that late.

She recalls, years ago, staying with friends, watching in silence as his wife would go to bed hours before he did. She vowed that could never happen to her. Yet here she is, still typing madly. Three feet behind her, in bed, he turns on the radio. It will cover the noise of her typing. It will help him sleep.

661 days, 23 hours, 34 minutes, 15 seconds

Midnight. The witching hour. She gives him i-pod speakers to replace the ones which broke last year. Which she also gave him. For another anniversary. Tonight he's taking Ambien, wanting the full night's sleep he was robbed of a few nights ago. What he calls her animal noises kept him awake. Any minute now and she'll turn into a pumpkin.

662 days, 0 hours, 5 minutes, 52 seconds

They weren't together more than three or four months. They went out to dinner at a little restaurant in the Village. There was a woman reading cards there, and they decided what the hell. She predicted they'd enjoy their time together, but the relationship wouldn't last more than three years. That was when they decided to make the most of their time together.

662 days, 0 hours, 10 minutes, 54 seconds

Ten minutes until their anniversary. It was seventeen years ago midnight when she gave him a watch as a wedding present. She can't remember the exact time of their marriage, but she remembers midnight. The two of them alone after dinner with both sets of parents, the first time the parents met, in a restaurant which, six years ago, turned into a gypsy fortune teller's storefront.

662 days, 0 hours, 26 minutes, 44 seconds

Less than 72 hours until baseball's opening day. And of course next weekend's when he's going to visit family in Florida. Some year, he keeps saying, he wants to get down there during spring training, but always he just misses it. Most years she goes down with him. This has more or less been an Easter tradition since they married, seventeen years ago. Their first night she fell in his brother's pool. And she was fully dressed. And she can't swim. And his brother laughed and laughed. And his father ran for a camera. And their motel room had two single beds, which they pushed together. The honeymoon suite, his brother called it.

663 days, 6 hours, 46 minutes, 7 seconds

She wishes this was a watch and not a key chain. A Backwards Bush watch. People might think it a Swatch at first, those ornamental faces. Then they might look at the numbers and get totally confused as to what time it is. Okay already. Her wrists are too small to wear a Swatch anyway. She doesn't even use this as a key chain. Or not for keys, anyway. She can just picture what would have happened, last year, when she lost her keys in Duane Reade, the manager asking if there was anything unique about her key chain. Picture trying to explain what Bush's face was doing there. And why her husband wanted it returned to her.

664 days, 4 hours, 24 minutes, 9 seconds

She waits outside for him, while he drops off an umbrella borrowed from a friend. It's what women do. They wait. This is a woman friend. It's the first warm night, a March that feels more like May. They were married in March.

665 days, 9 hours, 48 minutes, 5 seconds

As she destroys 194 countries with the bouncing bush head before even going downstairs for breakfast, she's reminded of The War of the Roses. It's not a movie she'd have elected to see on her own, but her husband told her it had something to do with Shakespeare's plays. This was back when she believed him. A horrid divorce comedy, but the one image she remembers is the ex inviting her husband to dinner, making a meat dish which he enjoyed immensely. Then he asked where the dog was.

666 days, 12 hours, 26 minutes, 28 seconds

She takes a few minutes out to play the Bush Pong game. She pretends it's her cousin's head there.