And it is nothing but human to breathe and feel inside a skin that knew him and to grieve – to think with a mind that heard him and to grieve – to still carry the needs that meant she would, over and over, touch him before she could even intend it, her love faster and deeper than her will, and to grieve. And it is normal, reasonable, for her to reach out and seize absurdities once he is gone. It is, after all, absurd that she continues and he does not. It is much less absurd to demand he come back: to be, in that way, optimistic. To be absurd and optimistic is not the same as being stupid. The wife, the widow – she isn’t stupid. She is hurt. And she is – though it seems rude to mention – a millionairess. Properties, stocks, shares, she is both cash- and asset-rich, has several millions. Lucky her. And if there was once a probably unpeculiar soul, a boy who folded himself away and made a package, a distasteful secret, of himself – who grew in a box of his own making – then he might later have become an adult specialist in hurt.
