Though she would have preferred long ago to have died, fled, gotten it all over with, the body —Jesus, how the body! — took its time. It possessed its own wishes and nostalgias. You could notjust 272 RealEslate turn neatly into light and slip out the window. You couldn’t go like diat. Within one’s o™ departing butstubborn flesh, there was only die long, sentimental, piecemeal farewell. Sir? A towel. Is there a towelfThe body, hauling sadnesses, pursued the soul, hobbled after. The body’ was like a sweet, dim dog trotting lamely toward the gate as you tried slowly to drive off, out the long driveway. Take me, take me too, barked the dog. Don’t go, don’t go, it said, running along the fence, almost keeping pace but not quite, its reflection a shrinking charm in the car mirrors as you trundled past the viburnum, past the pine grove, past the property line, past every last patch ofland, straight down the swallowing road, disappearing and disappearing. Unul at last it was true: you had disappeared