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Anton was fond of quoting Winston Churchill, who, on being told he would live twenty years longer if he did not drink, smoke, or eat so much, said, "It would only seem twenty years longer."

Whenever Anton would say this, lifting his stein of beer, or lighting another cigarette, Marta would reply with the old Marx Brother's line, "He looks like a fool and talks like a fool, but don't let him deceive you - he is a fool."

So that was the first thing she thought of upon waking next to Anton and finding him dead.

"Fool."

It was such a jolt, but she'd known it right off. She knew he was dead before she even turned to look at him. She could feel an absence where there had always been a presence. And when she did finally roll over into the further depths of the old feather bed, and touched his static, ashen face, she knew that she'd been right.

Even so, she couldn't really believe it, and she wondered briefly if life ever really believed in death. She knew that Anton had become quieter lately, that he saw the doctor more often, that he had assumed the betrayed look of the elderly, but she never expected to wake and find him dead next to her.

Marta knew she was supposed to do something now, to take some sort of action, but she wasn't sure just what that was. She didn't know if she should call the doctor, the coroner, or one of her children. She knew there would be a vast sadness and that it would be especially hers, but she didn't feel it yet. He had been her only love.

She sat up, moved to her edge of the bed, and in the cool, shade-darkened room she felt with her feet for her slippers. She sat there a moment and was thrown back to the time when Anton proposed.

They were up North, on a boat on a sun-sparkling lake. It was the first time she'd ever been on a boat. The air was so fresh and clean-smelling. She was busy tracing the tips of the shore's crowded pine trees with her eyes when Anton said he loved her. Would she marry him?

She said yes. She said she loved him too, but she wasn't really sure. She was so young. His arms while they rowed made an impressive show of muscles. His blue-green eyes matched the lake. There were ducks gliding all around with ducklings following. There was that air. She loved something. That was certain.

They went on to fill their small house with nine children. Nine children all still alive, and now grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. She could not have hoped for more from life, and yet she did.

She walked slowly into the kitchen and turned on the coffee maker, as she did every morning. Anton had set it up the night before, had ground the beans and measured the water, as usual. All she had to do was flip the switch. She sat at the big, empty maple table and listened to the coffee maker spit and bubble.

She had hoped for more. She had always been selfish for life. She'd had children in all the rooms, plants fighting for light in most of the windows. She'd tripped over dogs, and boxes of kittens while she hurried around with a baby on her hip. There was always a baby on her hip. And then one day there wasn't. She had wanted it to go on and on.

She saw one day years ago, when Anton, all dusty with construction work, came in the back door with a bag of oranges for the children, that she did love him. Specifically him. He looked so tired. So average. She thought her heart might be damaged by such love, it was so painful.

She poured a mug of coffee, held it up to her and let the steam curl around her face. She walked back into the bedroom, careful not to spill. She stood over him, and felt not sadness at all, but only a dim, growing anger.

"Traitor," she wanted to tell him. "It wasn't enough," she wanted to say. But she didn't know how she, Marta, who had created all those people, could ever again create something as tricky as sound, as thick as words.