He tells her, "It's the weekend, so put it out of your mind."

But the things that bother her never take vacations.

She sweeps the front porch, puts away dishes, hangs up a week's worth of laundered clothes, all to the accompaniment of a dirge that will not stop.

The sadness in the pit of her won't leave. She can't continue with the pretext that all is well.

Her options -- to live another day and to not live another day -- feel equally impossible