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Show I had been half-listening to the radio and scarcely noticed when the music broke to announce an automobile accident on the new belt-route freeway across town, a fatality. Then I realized announcer. that the* had said Jeanne's name. I don't remember driving the rest of the way home. I wanted to believe that there was some mistake. I went immediately to the telephone and called the number that had been engraved in memory since I was twelve. Foolishly I asked for Jeanne; the voice at the other end burst into tears. I was stunned that a life so young and full of promise would be taken. She had scarcely lived: newly in love, virginal, about to exercise her kindness on the world. The world needed more people like her, fewer people like me with my confusion and failure and my ancient heart. Why hadn't it been me instead of her? I attended her viewing although I had vowed not to go near such rituals while Brian was in Vietnam, afraid that any acknowledgment of death would allow it to creep into my life. And it had come, anyway, from an utterly unanticipated quarter. For a bleak, terrifying time, I wondered if her death .-*i^_*L\..i- f-±- was a preparation - a heavenly shoehorn to guide me into an acceptance of Brian's death. Then I recognized m« self-absorbtion and let the notion fly away on dark wings. It was bittersweet when I thought of her, dead at nineteen. Her perfect life, her beautiful romance would not be marred by life's inevitable gouges. My ideal, my perfect friend, would remain ideal, beyond time's mangling touch. |