Darkness. Beside me, Phil, asleep, his breathing calm. Reassuring, though its very regularity reminds me of my piercing fear: Phil gone, the darkness utterly still. We are seventy and seventy-five respectively, him the older. I take not one of those breaths for granted. Yes: age, our happy marriage, the lateness of it. Having lost one beloved husband, having lost the life we had together, the life we thought we’d have, I feel and fear deep in myself another such catastrophe. Always.

When I was a teenager, I learned from a Chinese calendar placemat in a restaurant that my birth year made me a rat. I was on a hot date in China Palace with Keith, my then-boyfriend-now-husband, and there it was, plain as day, on the placemat…I even moved the bottle of soy sauce to make sure I was reading it correctly and it was indeed clear: 1984, Rat.

I almost titled this letter “Dear Man-child” or “Dear Boy with the Napoleon Complex…” but, like most people, I realize it’s hard to convince people to listen to my point of view if I start out by insulting them.