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Show -8- end. She thought of it as duty, and began to hoard things: she bought sleeping tablets, an electric- fan, sheets to fit a hospital bed. When the pharmacy had a sale of sterile gauze pads, the kind creomight press onto the site of an injection, she bought two dozen boxes, two boxes a month, she made herself calculate, for the time he would lie in bed. She would be faultlessly prepared: when the time came, she would need only remove the dining table, group the chairs around for visitors, and take delivery of the bed. Like his father before him, he would lie there between the attacks, while each one weakened his heart a little more than the one before, until -- end after unending months -- the last would come, and it would be over. There would be no commotion and no crying, nothing but herself and her three silent daughters, sitting motionless beside the bed. She told the girls. Two were handsome laughing ones, like him. "Don't be silly, Mamma, Daddy's fine." But the third daughter, the youngest, was frail and dark like her, and she took the child aside. "Your sisters will live short, careless, happy lives," she said, "and only you will know what it means to be cold and alone. You must prepare yourself for that." The girl listened, but gave no sign that she understood. A J- •£* A •$* He came and went from his work, but she saw the changes come upon him. His pale blond hair grew thin; his complexion florid as he grew heavier. She was sure this was no mere aging, and she found herself oddly pleased, as |