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Show Moon -165 This is happening for a reason. I affect surprise as we are upon one another. He doesn't recognize me. I think this is as far as I want to carry this story. It's a dead end no matter which way you go and I do not, my God, how much I do not, wish to see Mark again, nor do I wish to entertain any longer the idea of ending up in a place like this. This is a certainty I pounce on, another possibility picked up like a stone, put back on the ground with relief and gratitude. The paths are empty now. The sky above the brick buildings is turning to lead, with not even a small sunset to ease the transition into twilight. Anne was handling it. She went to the library and read up. Multiple sclerosis: A chronic degenerative disease marked by patchy destruction of myelin that surrounds and insulates nerve fibers, resulting in mild to severe neural and muscular impairments. Why? No one seemed to know. There was no cure. The disease could strike in many ways. She might go into remission and stay that way until she died of old age. Or tomorrow she might be unable to walk. She would probably become incontinent. Already, there were signs of this, humiliating staggers to the bathroom, soiled spots on her nightgown. She could lose her eyesight. She might lose the use of her hands. That, too, had happened long ago at the cottage when her hands went numb, if only for a while. All those years of not knowing! What could James have been thinking? What could she have been thinking, with her flights into religion, her refusal to see what was right before her eyes? Sometimes the myelin in the brain was affected, the books said. She might lose |
