"Vassi, isn't there someone you can talk to now?"
He didn't answer her.
Julia looked around the room. "Vassi, are you still here? Vassi?
Vassi, if you don't talk, I can't tell if you're still here! Vassi,
please answer me. Did I talk too much? I didn't mean to run on about
my problems. I know you have a job to do. Maybe you can squeeze me
in. I don't want to keep you from your work. Vassi, you didn't go, did
you? You didn't leave me! Don't leave. I believe in you. I believe in
you...."
And now she had the aloneness she had longed for. He was gone and she
would be left with the Mrs. Shultzes and the doctor.
She went from the living room to the kitchen to the bathroom and back
into the living room, listening, hoping to catch the small sound of his
breathing. But her body would not be quiet and she heard nothing except
herself.
She stood for a long while looking down at the bed. The sunlight
drifted from the pillow onto the covers and finally spilled off the
foot of the bed onto the floor and the room was a shade darker. She was
a stone, but a stone whose blood gurgled and stomach rumbled and heart
beat and pulse pounded, so loudly she could hear nothing else.
Her legs gave way and she crumpled to the bed and she was silent at
last.
The breathing came from the direction of the window.