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get away to get some sunshine and shut eye. She said that if she went on
a trip by herself, she'd probably never come back. I think she meant it to
be a joke (she was still joking at this point) but I still called one of the
numerous help horlines I had tacked to my headboard once more that
night.

Aggie looked into the living room with the same expression
she had given the macadam outside. It was like watching a dog about
an hour before it dies; it trudges through those last sixty minutes,
determined to maintain usual Labrador decorum even when facing the
inevitable, trying to fake it until the end. I couldn't tell if she had heard
me or if she was trapped in her head again, worrying about something
or someone or the calories she might consume or the birthday card she
never sent to her mother or her failing memory or any other thing she
could possibly think to think about. I remember, sometime in my child-
hood, seeing an episode of The Magic School Bus where Miss Frizzle
takes her class to explore the inner workings of the human brain. A cool
concept when I was eleven. Now that I knew how fucked up a mind
could be, it was that much less appealing.

I followed Aggie's line of sight to the latch hook pillow that
laid sideways on the armchair near the television. I gave that to her for'
her birthday a couple of months ago. We had always been crafty in col-
lege, keeping Monday nights free for knitting and Food Network mara-
thons. I thought that by giving her the pillow, she would be reminded
of those times, remember how to relax and engage in something other
than obligatory work and worrying. She called it lovely and thanked me,
folded the glittery wrapping paper I had used into a neat folio shape.
The pillow had sat on the chair ever since.

"It's okay, actually," I said, taking her long reaction time as a
negatory, "They die so quickly and then there's all those fucking needles
to clean up. And we'd have to get a stand, which hell ifI know where
they sell those. And then we'd have to decorate and neither of us-"

"No:' Aggie quickly turned her head to mine, her response
shocking me into silence. On that list of expected replies I had concoct-
ed in my head, this hadn't even made the cut. The coffeepot hissed on its
hot plate, filling the empty air as Aggie weighed her next move.

"I want a tree:' she continued, the words awkwardly dropping
from her mouth as if English was her second language, "I think it would

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