LENA

Not only for this. But also for this.

I said: "She grew them for fifteen years."

My voice was different now. The control was the same, I had not stopped managing it, but something inside the control had changed, had shifted in the specific and particular way of a thing that was not coming apart but was becoming more honest, that was moving from the controlled register into a register that was still controlled and was also more true.

He was still looking at me.

"Before she got sick," I said. "She grew them. Every year." I paused. "She talked to them."

A beat.

"Not, she wasn't…" I paused....