Why do you have a cigarette lighter in your glove compartment?" her husband, Jack, asked her. "I'm bored with knitting. I've taken up arson

I still feel like a castaway, th elast of a once numerous species. It was as though Robinson Crusoe discovered the telltale footprint on the beach and then realized that it was his own. Myself, small as a leaf, thin as water, begins to cry.

Everything seems simple until you think about it.

I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.

I sit quietly and think about my mom. It's funny how memory erodes, If all I had to work from were my childhood memories, my knowledge of my mother would be faded and soft, with a few sharp memories standing out.

I think about my mother singing after lunch on a Summer afternoon, twirling in blue dress across the floor of her dressing room

Sometimes I'm happy when he's gone, but I'm always happy when he returns. -Clare