"If it had been a heart attack, the newspaper might have used the word , as if a mountain range had opened inside her, but instead it used the word , a light coming on in an empty room. The telephone fell from my shoulder, a black parrot repeating a sunday, dusky. If it had been , we could have cradled her as she grew smaller, wiped her mouth, said good-bye. But it was , how overnight we could be orphaned