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vitamins, presumably because she had a poor diet, she
suffered from chronic headaches and an acid stomach. She
was afraid of getting old and of cracked fingernails. A
working woman who had more money than time, who
bought expensive olive oil soaps in little boutiques and
didn’t get around to using them, and new toothbrushes
before she threw away her old ones. It occurred to her that
at last she would have enough room for all her stuff.
Somehow she couldn’t feel properly sad about Matthias.
Sometimes she cried and cried without stopping. At other
times she completely forgot that he was gone. They were
always spending a day or two apart, being alone wasn’t an
effort. Gillian hadn’t even been to his funeral, how could
she know he was really dead?
She took off her blouse and bra. Looking down herself, it
was easy to imagine nothing had happened. The accident
had left her with a couple of bruises on her torso and some
stitches on one leg, but other than that there were no signs
on her body. Then she raised her head and looked at her
face. In the hospital all she had seen were the wounds.
What she saw now, over an almost intact body, took all her
strength away. Her stomach knotted, and she crumpled to
the floor. She crawled to the bedroom on all fours and
flopped into bed. She felt her naked body, belly, waist, hips.
_____