The Hours

by Michael Cunningham

She wants for Evan and she wants for herself a book that can carry what that singular memory carries.

It could be a good day; it needs to be treated carefully.

She hasn’t asked the doctor about it; she’s afraid he’ll tell her to stop reading altogether.

She works, always, against the fear of relapse.

That was the moment, right then. There has been no other.

She can feel the headache creeping up the back of her neck. She stiffens. No, it’s the memory of the headache, it’s her fear of the headache, both of them so vivid as to be at least briefly indistinguishable from an onset of the headache itself.