One thing that interests me is that I can remember everything that happened beforehand, my thoughts before the accident are like little footprints cast in stone—I thought Go and then I thought No, don’t go, and then I thought, They’re stopping, and so I went—these thoughts are indelible, they will always exist, and even the things I saw and felt and thought a few minutes before the accident are stuck with me forever, I won’t be able to forget, for example, the yellow sunlight, or the way Henry sounded behind me singing the chorus from the Ship Titanic—So sad, So sad. I have this wealth of memory, is what I’m saying, fertile ground for regret, up until the moment I heard the car crash into the back of the bike, where Henry was. After that I remember nothing orderly until the paramedics told Henry he could stand and we went to the ambulance to have his back washed off and a bandage put on it. David tells me I was with Henry, where he lay by the side of the road, but I remember him further off, in the bushes, each of us alone, David floating somewhere, Johnny distant, in the hands of other people.

Henry’s fine. Scrapes on his back and shoulder, but he was wearing his helmet and the car wasn’t going very fast. They couldn’t see us in the yellow sunlight I was talking about, and when it looked like they were looking at me they were peering ahead, trying to see through the windshield, which they had just cleaned. We’re still lucky, if you want to put it in those terms. Nothing bad happened. Something bad almost happened, but almost happening is the same as not happening. I know this, but I don’t believe it, even though the proof is here, even though Henry woke up this morning and came into my room to tell me of a “good dream” he had last night, in which different fish and sharks lived together in a pool and he could go in it and nothing would hurt him.

Maybe a year ago, I felt so much love for my husband that I thought the sentence, “I must get a tattoo to commemorate my love for him.” Obviously, the flacks at the tattoo lobby have been doing their work. I accept that at least half of my thoughts have been planted by people with a commercial interest in me. I am grateful for this, because otherwise I would spend half of my time not thinking anything at all.

Oh, I don’t mean it. Do I? Lately I have instituted a new program of not buying things, so that we can pay for the kitchen, which is going to be, of course, more expensive than we thought. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you about the progress of our renovation, a subject only slightly less deadly than the topic Why I’m Late to This Thing I’m Late to. [And slightly more deadly than The Dream I Had Last Night That I Don't Understand (But You Will, Because It's Transparent).] I’m not doing anything drastic, of course. The program is just that, when I think, Should I buy this thing? I then think, No, I’m not buying anything. Then sometimes I don’t buy the thing.

I’m not crazy, like some people.

Anyway, I passed some time thinking about tattoos. I wanted a classy tattoo. I wanted an upper-middle-class tattoo, a tattoo that would signify taste and knowledge at the same time it communicated undying love for another upper-middle-class person. Also, I wanted a tattoo that would look nice as my body deteriorates.