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149 heAven Mrs. Kavanaugh trudges with her bag of groceries up the piss-smelling stairs pausing at each landing to catch her breath Her pulse pounds in her ears Her ankles are swollen her feet painfully loaves in an oven She fumbles for her key in the dim hallway and lets herself in the double-locked door Inside it is cool the curtains drawn odors of boiled cabbage and the cats Gratefully she sinks into the easy chair the bag between her knees and stares up at the mantle the picture of Arthur in his soldier’s uniform next to the picture of Jesus his lush red heart The cats come purring rubbing on her calves but for the moment she ignores them This is her time alone with Arthur before her husband comes grunting from work his beer and cigar smoke and demands To be alone to reabsorb him to her sunken body Nothing can make up for the death of a child Not her other children not the grandchildren At first his death was jagged 150 as if they had ripped his blondness out of her searing as if she were birthing him again But now it is almost a comfort round a foreshortened space like an altar niche inside her Vaguely it becomes her own death the bright pool of heaven ...

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