‘No, no, no!’ Yelling at himself, stomping on the floor, furious. He swore again, violently, then kicked at the chair near the table, but it just sat there, obstinate. So he grabbed the back of it and sent it flying across the room, where it slammed into the cabinets, cutting new gouges into the pitted wood.

He left the chair where it was on the floor, then stood a long moment, forcing himself to calm down, to think.

This was one of the signs, wasn’t it? He’d warned himself to be sure to recognize them when they got here, and now he wasn’t going to go denying them. His mind was going to leave him someday – inevitably – and in the lucid moments he was clear on his strategy. He wasn’t going to go out mumbling with shit in his diapers. He was going to die like a man.

He had the syringes, the morphine. He still knew where they were. Thank God for Graham – his one good son. The one good thing, when he looked back over it all.

He would call Graham. That’s what he’d do.

He walked back through the living room. How had the window gotten closed? He was sure he’d been sitting in the chair and then he’d remembered it was Friday and he’d gone into the kitchen…

All right. The syringe. He remembered. He could still remember, God damn it.

But then he saw his watercolor and stopped again, lost in the lines he’d painted so long ago, trying to render his old boat. A foghorn sounded and he stared at the window again – the closed window. He stood in the center of the room, unmoving. He had been going somewhere specific. It would come to him.

Another minute, standing there, trying to remember. And another blinding stab of pain in his head.

Tears ran down his face.

The vials – the supply of morphine – were in the medicine cabinet with a couple of syringes, and he took the stuff out and laid it on the dresser next to his bed.

He went back to the kitchen. Somebody had knocked the chair over, but he’d get that in a minute. Or not. That wasn’t what he’d come in here for.