180 WIVESBEHVINGBADLY

i passed a hand over my face ." there were so many calls . i couldn't  cope with them ."
" that 's why i'm here to help ."
" that 's nice , paige ."
" how ar you feeling ?"
" my husband has died ."
" not all bad then , " escaped frpm paige 's lips , and was followed by , " sorry , unforgiveable ."
thus it was that i found mysef sitting at the kitchen table rocking with hystrical laughter at paige's unforgiveable joke . charlie burped and regurgitated a stream of milk , and she dabbed at his mouth .
" my husband is for sale , " she remarked ." any offers ?"
the pos brought a copy of the postmortem . i sat at the kitchen table and deciphered it word by word .... decoding the medical terinology in order to understand the precise nature of nathan 's heart , ungs , and brain .
the brain is fine , i could have told them that . any fool ( which) included roger ) knew that . snap , snap . the messges in that brain zipped uneringly from synapse to synape . one of those messages had been a simple one : i must provide for my family , another : let me on with my job .
nathan 's lungs ? for a man of his age , in execellent conditin .
the arteries ?  if it  could be put this way , they had been natan 's achilles 's heel .
how often had i observed his outer casing ? hundreds of times , he was a man who loked good for his age .(nb , a label that is quite different in meaning when applied to the male ,) . he looked right in his old blue shirt at home . or on the beach ,