We tried so hard. We were always trying to help each other. But not because we were helpless. He needed to get things for me, just as I needed to get things for him. It gave us purpose. Sometimes I would ask him for something that I did not even want, just to let him get it for me. We spent our days trying to help each other help each other. I would get his slippers. He would make my tea. I would turn up the heat so he could turn up the air conditioner so I could turn up the heat.

Being with him made my brain quiet. I didn't have to invent a thing.

Darling, You asked me to write you a letter, so I am writing you a letter. I do not know why I am writing you this letter, or what this letter is supposed to be about, but I am writing it nonetheless, because I love you very much and trust that you have some good purpose for having me write this letter. I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love. Your father

They reciprocated the great and saving lie--that our love for things is greater than our lover for our love for things--willfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, willfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life.

Only now do I understand the war against boredom, the lost cause of empty hours, of empty days and nights.

They do not desire anything more than everything they have known.

I went to the guest room and pretended to write. I hit the space bar again and again and again. My life story was spaces.