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Pretty Soon, It Was
- The Kent State University Press
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a different life 291 Pretty Soon, It Was Heather Candels One day you dropped dead and pretty soon it was the next day and I was shopping for coffins. Pretty soon it was a week and I threw away your toothbrush, finished the last of the cornflakes you started, tossed the newspapers you swore you’d read some day. Then it was a month and I gave away your shoes, found myself a lawyer, ordered official papers to prove I was alone. Pretty soon it was two months and your autopsy report landed cold in my mailbox smattered with words that may as well have been hieroglyphics. Later it was six months and you weren’t the only thing on my mind. Another year and the scent faded from your one shirt I kept in the closet, and then I looked at another man. 292 the widows’ handbook And suddenly there was another man and another, and none of them were you. Pretty soon it was ten years and I tucked our wedding photo into a drawer. It seemed like too many years when all those babies who were born the year you died grew up. And when I almost forgot the sound of your voice, the brown of your eyes, I donated your glasses to a worthy cause. Pretty soon my hair was gray and yours was still brown, yet all of you was gone. ...