The way we live now, Part II

For Mother's Day, Serena posted an e-mail: she will be bald by Father's Day. Her children are ages 2 and 4. She starts a just-approved "infusion" treatment today. My response is numbness. Sex won't help this time, nor will sneaking a cigarette.

Despite my neighborhood and its historical telephone exchanges, it's never going to be BUtterfield 8 around here. The slut and a gentleman is history. He e-mailed last week, with a proposed time and his schedule, then called (and woke me up, which no one is allowed to do, ever. I am not verbal before noon).

I had a friend make the last call to his cell phone. She told him: Alice says she can't be the Other Woman for someone who has to see a puppy about a man. (The slut and a gentleman also poses as a horse farmer and companion to many canines. I wonder if his girlfriend helps muck the stalls.)

Serena is dying and I am too old not to be The Woman. If there is Another Man or Another Woman already in the picture, count me out. Your photograph and my ego will both appreciate it.

An "infusion" sounds so pleasant. It sounds like herbal tea served while you are wrapped in one of Cara's blankets, seated on the deck of a yacht. It sounds comforting and soothing.

It doesn't sound harsh, like chemo, or the kind of infusions Serena will have, will need to blast the cancer from her liver. Her infusions work on the we-have-to-kill-the-village-to-save-it principle. God, I hope they succeed.