headed off to the post office in his Wagoneer that much was crystal
clear. She remembered doing the white load in the new Sears washer
while Wheel of Fortune blared from the TV. That was also clear.
Then the inkstain began. She remembered putting in the colors and
starting the cold cycle. She had the faintest, vaguest recollection of
putting a couple of Swanson's Hungary man frozen dinners in the
oven for herself 'Becka Paulson was a hefty eater but after that
there was nothing. Not until she had awakened sitting on the living-
room couch. She had changed from slacks and her flowed smock into
a dress and high heel; she had put her hair in braids. There was
something heavy in her lap and on her shoulders and her forehead
tickled. It was Ozzie Nelson. Ozzie was standing with his hind legs in
her crotch and his forepaws on her shoulders. He was busily licking
blood off her forehead and out of her eyebrow. She swotted Ozzie
away from her lap and then looked at the clock. Joe would be home
in an hour and she hadn't even started dinner. Then she had touched
her head, which throbbed vaguely.
''Becka?'
'What?' She sat down at her place and began to spoon beans
onto her plate.
'I asked you what you did to your head?'
'Bumped it,' she said ... although, when she went down to the
bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror, it hadn't looked like a
bump; it had looked like a hole. 'I just bumped it.'
'Oh,' he said, losing interest. He opened the new issue of
Sports Illustrated which had come that day and immediately fell into
a daydream. In it he was running his hands slowly over the body of
Nancy Voss an activity he had been indulging in the last six weeks
or so. God bless the United States Postal Authority for sending Nancy
Voss from Falmouth to Haven, that was all he could say. Falmouth's
loss was Joe Paulson's gain. He had whole days when he was quite
sure he had died and gone to heaven, and his pecker hadn't been so
frisky since he was nineteen and touring West Germany with the U.S.
Army. It would have taken more than a Band-Aid on his wife's
forehead to engage his full attention.
'Becka helped herself to three hot dogs, paused to debate a
moment, and then added a fourth. She doused the dogs and the beans
with ketchup and then stirred everything together. The result looked a
bit like the aftermath of a bad motorcycle accident. She poured
herself a glass of grape Kool-Aid from the pitcher on the table (Joe
had a beer) and then touched the Band-Aid with the tips of her fingers
she had been doing that ever since she put it on. Nothing but a cool
plastic strip. That was okay ... but she could feel the circular
indentation beneath. The hole. That wasn't so okay.
'Just bumped it,' she murmured again, as if saying would
make it so. Joe didn't look up and 'Becka began to eat.
Hasn't hurt my appetite any, whatever it was, she thought. Not
that much ever does probably nothing ever will. When they say on
the radio that all those missiles are flying and it's the end of the world.
I'll probably go right on eating until one of those rockets lands on
