“Listen to me,” she would say then, almost shouting, trying to take him by the shoulders and shake him out of what she could not see as other than an elaborate pose; he would knock her away, and the look on his face, contorted, teeth bared, would render her paralyzed. “Why don’t you just get it over with,” he would say then, leaning close, his face still contorted. “Why don’t you just go in that bathroom and take every pill in it. Why don’t you die.” After
