I should go upstairs and throw my underwear and socks and shirts in a suitcase. Maybe the movers will never come. Maybe they’ll come, but they’ll take pity on me and refuse to pack and haul, their consciences unwilling to let them throw me out on the street. I need a little nap. I can’t drag myself farther than the sofa. I close my eyes and my thoughts drift to a packed church, filled to capacity. I feel the heat of the bodies in the pews behind me. An ancient crone is pumping away and the organ is groaning. My sister sits beside me, whimpering and dabbing her eyes. Her husband puts his arm around her shoulder. Her sons stare at the casket resting before the altar. Dustin, her younger boy, tries to comfort his sister, sweet and awkward and self-conscious as he rises to the occasion. My heart is racing. All these people and the church feels empty, just me and the coffin.

Then a warm body slides into the pew. A small hand takes my larger one and gives it a soft kiss. My wife-no, my ex-wife, my friend-has taken pity and rescues me from my solitude. She stays with me through the interminable service and the long ride to the cemetery. She’s obviously pregnant and Sweeney the Son fetches a folding chair, setting it at the graveside. She ignores his kindness and stands by my side in the oppressive heat. She presses her left hand against my back to steady me. I feel her wedding band, not the one I slipped on her finger, through my damp jacket.

Later that night, I sit on the patio, drinking and smoking and counting the moths fluttering in the porch lights, while my sister and her husband, who’ve re-occupied the Monument to Heat and Air since my mother died, eat pizza and watch Die Hard with their kids. Little Dustin, looking younger than his years in his Tweety Bird nightshirt, comes seeking quieter companionship, an old board game under his arm.

“Sure, I’ll play with you,” I say, grateful for the company. “You can be Miss Scarlet if you want. I promise I won’t tell.”

I lie on my back, dozing, debating whether to pop another pill to put me under for the afternoon. I think that tarantula might be tearing my throat apart. I can’t swallow and drool is dribbling from my mouth. Perspiration drips from my eyebrows. I stumble to the kitchen but cold water from the faucet doesn’t soothe my burning eyes. I trip over my feet and fall face first into the sink, splitting my lip. My blood tastes like roast beef, rare. I wrestle with an ancient ice tray, spilling the cubes on the floor. I pick up the one closest to my foot and press it against my throbbing lip. I feel a long hair dangling on the tip of my tongue. I try to flick it away, but it has a will of its own, clinging to my bloody finger by its steel gray root.

I go upstairs, searching for an aspirin to dull the pain. My medicine cabinet’s empty except for my trusty Ativan, an exhausted tube of toothpaste, and a used Band-Aid. I’ll try my mother’s. Surely one lonely Bayer survived the wholesale disposal of her pharmacopoeia. The last of the prednisone, Compazine, and Lomotil has been flushed down the toilet. The septic tank’s probably developing muscles from all the steroids it’s swallowed. What’s left? Tweezers, cotton balls, and cuticle scissors. And one lonely hidden prescription bottle, dated over a year ago, when the word lymphoma was only a Latinate obscurity in the Family Medical Dictionary, when my mother’s sore throat meant nothing more than a bacterial infection brought on by the change of seasons. A simple cephalosporin, a ten-day regimen, Take Until Completed. My poor mother, usually so compliant, ignored the instructions on the label and stopped taking the pills when the pain subsided. Maybe it upset her tummy, maybe she felt like being defiant just once in her life. Six little striped capsules are left. Not too old, probably still effective. If one works, two will work even faster.

I swallow one, then another. I should start packing, but my mother’s rumpled bed is more appealing. I crawl under the covers, wishing I had a beer, but I’m too tired to walk downstairs. The label said Take Until Completed. She didn’t, leaving six in the bottle. Maybe that was her fatal mistake. The causes of cancer are a mystery, that is, beyond the obvious things like cigarettes and charred meat and Three Mile Island. Maybe that innocent sore throat started a chain reaction that eventually consumed her body.

It could have been what killed her. That or a million other things. It doesn’t make much difference. All that’s left of her is her bed. And even here, it’s hard to find any trace of her. I’ve slept in this bed every night since my sister left and spent most of my days propped against the pillows. There’s no television in the bedroom, just a small clock radio still tuned to her favorite station. I listen to happy talk, armchair psychologists and financial advisors and brand-name chefs and celebrity interviewers more famous than the celebrities they interview. It’s all white noise filtering any intrusions from the world.

My mother would hardly know this bed anymore. I haven’t changed the sheets. I prefer body smells to fabric softener; they’re rich and warm, fecund like the good earth. Like the boxers I haven’t changed in days. No wonder my crotch is itching like hell. Scratching just makes it worse. I should be ashamed of myself. What would my mother think if she saw me wallowing in her bed in this condition?

But she’s not coming back. And if she could, she’d probably just pull the covers up to my shoulders and tell me to try to sleep. Or maybe she would haul me out by the ankles, yank me by the hair, deliver a swift kick to the ass, and tell me to shape up.

I kick aside the bedsheets and stick my hand in my boxers, lazily scratching my balls. A rash is spreading beyond my crotch, across my belly, over my chest, up to my head. I sit up in bed, pawing myself like a bipolar chimpanzee on a manic swing. A shower might help. The water is tepid, as cold as it ever gets in the dying days of a Southern summer, and relief lasts only while the water is running.

I turn off the water and reach for a towel. I’m red, a bright flaming scarlet. My body is a lunar landscape of angry hives. I drop the towel on the floor, barely recognizing the monster in the bathroom mirror. Huge welts creep across my face. My body is going haywire. Alarm bells are ringing inside my ears. No, it’s just the doorbell. No, it’s too shrill for the doorbell. Can’t be the doorbell. Only the Jehovah’s Witnesses come calling these days, trying to rescue my soul with copies of Watch-tower.

What the hell were those pills? They look harmless enough, sitting here on the sink. What are these fucking things? I pop the lid and flush them down the toilet. The whirlpool makes me dizzy. One little capsule clings to the porcelain bowl, defying me. I fill a glass with water and try to swallow, hoping to restore my body to a state of grace.

The phone is screeching again. The answering machine picks up and my sister begs me to answer. She sounds as if she’s crying. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. I’m all right. It’s nothing. She keeps calling my name. Andy. Andy. Andy? She can’t hear me answering.

Where’s the phone? Where’s the fucking phone? I weave and stumble toward the bed, trying to catch my breath. Aha! There you are, you naughty little glow-in-the-dark princess. My awkward foot kicks the receiver across the floor.

Are you there? Please, are you there?

Gina’s voice is tiny, tinny, muffled by the thick carpet.

I’m all right…all right, I want to tell her, but I can’t speak now, can’t waste the effort. It takes every bit of strength I have to breathe. I can only look at the phone and gasp and heave. My throat is collapsing; my lungs are screaming for oxygen. I want to tell her bye, bye, kiddo, sweet dreams, don’t let the bed bugs bite.

Go ahead and close your eyes, I think. Sleep tight. Don’t be afraid. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m scared, but not as much as I should be. Some part of me believes this is only a dream and I’ll wake before I stop breathing.