It is amazing how efficient you can be when there will be no day after tomorrow.

I call the utilities, the paper, the post office, ask them to suspend service indefinitely. No one asks why. No one asks would I like anything turned back on. They can hear the age in my voice. No one is interested, except Blink.

She finished the painting today.

"It's beautiful," I lied. It is beautiful, though I am not. The brush strokes, the light. The honesty. I can see nothing beautiful about my body. The nuns taught me to despise it, my mother reviled it. Only Daddy thought I was pretty, and he's been gone a long time.

Blink looks at the paintng, looks at me. Looks, in her direct young way, about my hips, my breasts. For a moment I think there will be one more strange experience before my life is over.

"You never talk about your...daughter...your son?"

The stretchmarks, of course. But I ask her anyway.

Blink says, "I had a boyfriend who said, 'The body doesn't lie,' but of course, he lied all the time."

"I had a son. I guess I have one. I haven't seen him since he was 18."

"Why?"

"His father--my ex-husband--didn't approve of his lifestyle. Threw him out of the house."

Blink doesn't look away from me, exactly, just moves her face into shadow. I can't tell what she's thinking, but I bet it isn't good.

"I did nothing to stop him. I was afraid of him, my husband. Afraid I would lose him."

"Did you try to find him?"

"I saved up money that I hid from my husband. I hired a detective, a good one. She told me what I should have known already: that my son was alive and well, but never wanted to see me again."