In the dream everybody in the world seems to know this except Gately, like he’d missed that day in school when they covered it, and so Death’s having to sit here naked and angelic and explain it to him, very patiently, more or less like Remedial Reading at Beverly H.S. Death says the woman who either knowingly or involuntarily kills you is always someone you love, and she’s always your next life’s mother. This is why Moms are so obsessively loving, why they try so hard no matter what private troubles or issues or addictions they have of
