November 16, 2008. 2:35. Past the Korean wig shops and the bright, charming basement window full of massage oils and penis rings, on the way to the bus stop, Mrs. Norn makes her way through the buckets of cut flowers on the sidewalk outside the florist and orders flowers delivered to her on Friday, which will be her first full day in the grave.

She'll have to spend eternity there beside him, but at least she'll have her own bed. Stumping past lilies and glads, she stops enchanted before twisted branches choked with wild exotic blooms of grotesque shapes and flaming colors, signs the card "With Best Wishes," and her name.

"With Deepest Sympathy" is more customary, ma'am," says the young thing in a spiked choker, lisping around her tongue ring, but Mrs. Norn smiles and says, "Just send it this way," and signs with a flourish. They'll say I was getting senile, she thinks with pleasure.

November 16, 2008. 4:00. The reds and golds of autumn are over, and the trees in the cemetery thrust stark branches into the leaden sky.

Breathless after the long toil up the hill, she gives a brief nod to the scruffy young caretaker and, legs sturdily apart, leaning hard with both hands on the cane, head sunk between her shoulders like a worn old bird, settles herself in front of her husband's tombstone, a double designed with space for two names, but with only his name and dates.

The "True Companion" tombstone.. Memorial marker, she corrects herself. There aren't any tombstones now, nor coffins, nor death. Plenty of other bad words, but no tombstones.

At the time, she could have saved a pretty penny by letting them sand-blast her name and birth date when they were doing John's. She'd given in to his family on the tombstone, but she'd held out on her own name.

"In the grave soon enough, don't need a place card," she'd said.

"Fanciful, always was," she heard them whisper.

November 16, 2008. 4:10. The sun, sinking lower, almost to the horizon, suddenly slides behind clouds. The cemetery is large, on top of a hill. Little groups of trees, gnarled and subdued by the wind, break into the skyline, and the paths creep endlessly around and around. With the departure of the distant autumn sun, the air becomes chillier. She shivers and buttons up the brown cardigan under her old black coat.

The cemetery is lonely and almost deserted. Only the young worker remains, idly picking up a few branches here and there. Wants me to leave so he can lock up, she thinks, but I've got a right to be here. Isn't dusk yet. Dawn to dusk, that's what it says on the sign. She shifts her position slightly so she doesn't have to see him, doesn't have to hurry.

On the summer visit, one of her acquaintances would sometimes come to get away from the city for a bit, but they live as she does, on too much stale pastry and weak tea, too delicately old to come in winter, with two buses there, the cold wind at the top of the hill, two buses back and the walk home. The neighborhood of the cemetery, once respectable, nice, is now shabby, an uneasy place for the fragile old.

She wishes she had come earlier. It has become somber and damp sooner than she expected; no one is walking on the winding paths. The wind is picking up with a whining promise of raw rain. Only the young man is sitting on one of the stone benches, having a cigarette while he waits, and she is grateful for his presence, feels in her pocket for a quarter to give him when she leaves.

December 25, 19 34 . The merriment flows around her, even as the smell of the roasting turkey and the Christmas pies. It is a noisy holiday at their house, with all the fat jolly aunts and uncles and bottles of beer. The women are cooking in the kitchen, setting out glass dishes of pickles and olives, slicing ordinary bread in triangles for this special day, mixing white sauce to go with the peas.

In the living room, where the tree glows with fashionable blue bulbs, her father and the uncles tell funny stories in low voices and then roar with laughter that gets louder and louder after each beer run to the back porch.

She takes her gifts to the corner behind the big brown chair, where there is less smoke from pipes and cigars. She puts the furniture in the little doll house and rubs her toy iron back and forth on the rug.

Then she leaves her corner, pushing the little broom back and forth until she reaches the large open space where her brothers lay sprawled with glittering marbles, building logs, and mechanical sets with tiny motors and wonderful little screws and connectors. She drops down cross-legged on the rug and edges as close as she dares, reaches out and hooks a handful of logs close to her, but then Eddie raises his voice in indignant protest.

"Dad, will you make Sophie leave our stuff alone? She's got her own toys. Tell her to go play with her doll."

Not waiting to be scolded, she scuttles back to the corner behind the chair, dresses and undresses the doll, puts all the doll furniture in the right rooms and then in the wrong rooms, knowing she can wait until the logs are no longer new and part of the metal pieces are lost. Then she will be able to play with them as much as she likes.

June 14, 1944. The dress represents enormous financial sacrifice, months of scrimping and saving. "Shut your eyes, baby," her mother calls in from the front hall and Sophie obediently prepares for the surprise. It has to be the one from the Bridal Shoppe on Third. Mom and the aunts have taken her there several times and they all settled on it. The dress, covered with crystal, glistens under the fluorescent lights, so stiff it will stand by itself.

She has suggested a white wool suit that she can use after, and using the wedding dress money for a secretarial course, but they are indignant at the thought of cheating her.

"The happiest day in a girl's life," Dad says gruffly. "Seems like only yesterday you were over there in that corner with your doll."

The shiny dress gets married. She receives dustcloths and brushes, helps them to tidy and scrub, puts shiny dishes in the correct cupboards, is the stove's right-hand woman as it feeds her new husband.

1945. If John functioned as efficiently as the stove, or the iron, or the vacuum, there would be compensations. The other appliances do their jobs. The dress got married, the stove cooks, the iron irons. But when John is plugged in, he short-circuits. There is a power surge, and then the current fails.

Diffidently, she asks if a small adjustment, perhaps a trip to the body shop might help, but John, enraged, screams that it is she, she who doesn't know how to operate it correctly.

Then she understands that this has to be placed in the category of improperly functioning, non-returnable gifts from close friends and relatives, like Aunt Clara's electric knife in the obviously drawer-worn box it has been living in for a number of years. So when she learns that the knife delivers a nasty shock each time it's used, she just smiles, says it's lovely, thanks, and she enjoys it very much.

May 23, 1998 . John has been dead for two years. She has paid the rent on their little house since then, but his pension is small and he never let her work. She finds a cheap room not far from where she and John had lived, on the same bus line. It's near a nice little park in front of the public library, across the street from the university's main building. A safe area, well lighted at night, popular with old people for the safety, lights, and cheap rooms. They welcome her when she first starts to be seen in the park, the library, the A&P, teach her the lore of survival.

"Go to that young red-headed check-out girl at the A&P. She'll always say something pleasant, even if it's a busy day."

"Go to the hospital thrift store on 13th Street . All the rich people give their stuff to it."

"We buy the economy-size detergent when it's on sale and then share it. Save your bread bags to put it in."

"Go to the library," they tell her. Laughing politely, she tells them she's not, never has been, a reader.

That is before she experiences the summer torment, the winter chill, the evening gloom of her small room. Then the library, air-conditioned in summer, warm in winter, elegant with inlaid marble floors and thick carpet, with wingback chairs in the reading room, a cheap cup of tea in the basement cafe, becomes her home, too, and she returns to the little room only to sleep.

1999, 2000, 2001 . . .2008. She lives in the library filled with her contemporaries. They nod to one another, discuss the new librarian, the guard who never smiles, the new curtains in the reference room, residents of the little library town, under the head librarian, whom they seldom see but know to be there governing them. There are all the estates-- the haughty college-qualified librarians, the clerks, the workers, the scholars, the professors, the students. The young women students in their ragged jeans and sweat shirts.

November 16, 2008. 4:30. The dark is coming on rapidly. Most of the people have walked down the hill to catch the bus. Only the man still sits on the bench, patiently waiting for her. She feels in her pocket and mentally updates his tip to two quarters. What the hell. She's going to have plenty and a little over this month. The chill is beginning to get in her bones and she shifts her position, the tip of her cane sinking into the earth of her husband's grave.

Well, I came here to tell you something, John. No offense meant, and I hope none taken, but I'm going to die because I've decided to, not moaning and groaning for a few more minutes like you. I don't mean to go through another winter in that cold little room. I don't even have a coat. Oh, I could get one at the thrift shop. I could find some boots and gloves, but I'm not going to. Because I choose not to. I don't want to spend any more time like a grub, surviving. I've decided to die. Maybe the next time I come around, I'll make better choices from the beginning.

After she'd got comfortable in the library, felt at home there, she began to watch the young women. Beauty shining even without lipstick and perms, in their old t-shirts and ragged jeans. At their age, she was already married. In high school, where she'd been an earnest, dependable student, her work had always been neatly done but not with dedication, not like these young women.

She wondered at them, reading by the hour, writing everything down on little cards, then filling out orders for more dusty books, going through print like she used to go through a box of chocolates. She'd always been envious of those who could read by the hour, sink into books. Eggheads, John used to laugh, but she'd secretly thought they'd discovered some sort of secret about life, knew more about happiness than people like her did.

So she drifted through the shelves, not the ones up front with bright, plastic-covered pictures on the covers, new romances, new mysteries but the sections where the books had numbers, the place the students got their books. She pulled them off the shelves, read a few lines here, a chapter there, retreated to the cafe and a cup of tea, felt as if she had been drowning, going down again and again and coming up gasping for air.

Obviously, you couldn't read these books like that anymore than you'd start off driving to Las Vegas with no idea in the world which direction to go. A plan, that would be the trick. She followed one of her favorite students, a slender blonde who looked like her high school graduation picture. Whenever she left something on a table, Mrs. Norn moved right in, but she still couldn't make heads or tails of it.

It was like eating crumbs from the table. You might know it had come from a cake, but you couldn't tell what it had looked like, how many layers were there just by the icing. It was like the crumbs from all the deserts, all swept into one pile. And if one book said one thing, the next one said the opposite. She felt more and more stupid, shut out, locked out. Like someone living in a nice town on welfare, too shabby for church. Well, maybe the Pentecostals but not the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians. Probably not even the Methodists.

She tried to make the best of it, thought, well, the students read for four years. They have people to get them started, check up on them. It was too late for her but she kept on reading the best she could, travel books, autobiographies, at least never sinking to the seductive bright covers of romance and mystery, thinking she'd end up a little smarter than she started, like the way you feel when you shake hands with a celebrity., something rubs off on you.

November 16, 2008. 4:37. The first spits of rain are already coming down. As soon as she gets home, she'll clean her room a little, at least what she can see. Dust bunnies under the bed and what's on the top of the shelf don't concern her any more. When the forecast sleet comes later, she'lll turn on the heater. All the way up to high.

Get the room nice and warm, wash all over. She has a sink in her room but hasn't had a bath for four years. Never mind, she has a new bar of Pears soap from England , translucent amber, never been used, a spicy yet fresh smell, edges sharp and clear. She's spent her whole check. The new nightgown, never washed, so creamy and smooth. By the time she put it on, rain would be soaking the leaves in the street.

I bought a bottle of sherry like we used to have for Christmas, John. I'll have it from a little glass I bought at the Nearly New, with a twisted stem and a pattern of vines and leaves cut into the glass. I've got pastry from the Swedish Bakery. They don't even sell day-old. I'm going to arrange them on a pretty plate and I'm going to sit there in my warm room with the icy rain falling far from me, in my silken gown, and I'll eat and drink until the wine makes moving a conscious delight. As I drink the last of the wine, I'll take the pills. I've saved three prescriptions even though my legs hurt until I couldn't sleep. Then I'll lie down in my bed and go into that good heavy sleep and never wake to greyness and cold again. I may have wasted most of my life, John, but I'm going to die under my own steam, exactly the way I want to. It's just about my first big decision, you see.

4:39 :15. She turns to leave, suddenly aware of the deserted cemetery and shrouding fog. Not quite deserted. The young man has come suddenly closer. He looks at her, no longer pretending. She thinks desperately of her rosy room, her wine, her choice. Trying to move rapidly, she takes a first step and feels how the gradual chill of evening has stiffened her bones.

4:39 :25. He is suddenly beside her, before she leaves the grave. That's part of the kick. He reaches her and clamps his hard palm over her mouth. Keeping her silent, he reaches under her dress and drags off her underwear, knowing it will be the pink kind all the old biddies use. He pushes her into position on the grave and grins at the gaunt awkwardness of her limbs. None of his buddies understand his kick at the old ones, even when he explains.

"They've been without so long, see, it's like cherry."

4:39 :30. She is unexpectedly strong with horror, but his husky young body keeps her down without effort. For a brief moment, the blazing heat of his body communicates to her chilled flesh and she almost wants to give up. Then he begins to wrench and rip at her, easily holding her down.

The rain has started to fall in earnest and she has a horrible vision of John chuckling and laughing at her from under the ground. She had had a plan. She'd saved her prescription and bought the wine. She had a plan and one more time she is being kept from it, kept from her choice, her choice, her choice. One more time. She screams and flails at him with her fragile fists but he holds her down with the weight of his body, his hands around her throat, and does not rise again until she is dead.

4:45. November 16, 2008. The rising mist shrouds him as he hurries from the graveyard and soon disappears from view. It is the first time he has killed. He hadn't intended to go that far.

"Crazy old bat," he mutters. "Wasn't my fault. She just asked for it."