Day Two

He wakes up, and before he opens his eyes, he feels his body. These sensations have plagued him for nine months. They come at random. A buzzing in his left foot. A cramp that persists in his right calf. Sometimes it shoots behind his knee.

He knows where he is, and he knows he should be happy. He should feel good. He should be calm. But the panic set in even before he opened his eyes. The feeling he could only describe to others as "sick," or "something's off." It disappoints him, but he's used to it.

As doom lodges itself in his stomach, his wife enters the room through a screen door that's slightly off its track and makes a painful noise. He looks around at the condo, at the light coming in from behind the screen, but he's too preoccupied with the way his body feels to register most of it.

He turns over, and his wife gets back into bed on her side and says, "you're not happy."

Untold emotions rattle around his stomach.

"I just woke up," is all he can say.

"Howard is here. I heard his voice down by the pool. And Axwell no longer works here."

"That's too bad. I liked Axwell. I really liked Axwell."

"Remember what he used to say? No day is a bad day."

"No day is a bad day. God made all those days," he says, imitating the intense, gravelly voice the Bahamian security guard had used when he first shared this aphorism with them years ago.

"That voice," his wife says as she gets back out of bed.

After his shower he reaches up to grip the bathroom doorframe, stretching his upper body. The calf pain is mostly gone now, but his shoulders feel tired and sore. Something's off with his right wrist. There is a dull ache just below his palm.

He tries to shrug it all off. He goes outside to the patio with a cup of Earl Grey tea and a stack of three books. The smallest, and placed on top, is a translation of the Qur'an by Yusuf Ali. The front and back cover have both been torn off, but both still loosely hold their place.

Thick shrubs hedge the square patio laid out in large cement tiles. His wife has already moved the table off-center, closer to the shrubs. The sun bypasses a palm that will shade the table for most of the morning. He moves a chair to the corner and looks across the courtyard at the units on the other side. The path between the two buildings snakes through the palms, leading down to the pool and to the beach.

"This life is of limited comfort compared to the next," he reads from the Qur'an.

This irony is not lost on him. Although the rhythm of this place has only just begun, it is a rhythm of leisure. A rhythm he's used to.

Nine months ago, he noticed what his ophthalmologist referred to as "cotton-wool spots." These sparkles of white light blinked across his vision from the corner of his right eye one night before bed. It started while trying to read subtitles while watching a film projected on the white bedroom wall. An annoyance. The next morning, with his eyes closed in the shower, against the darkness the flashes expanded. Those flashes sparked deep within, setting fire to something that has been burning ever since.

Since then, he has become a raft, drifting on a river of anxiety. As time has passed, the tandem anchors of faith and his wife have provided some restraint, but the current still strongly pulls towards storm and stress. He's stained with fear.

He knows he can't continue like this, perpetually obsessed over the state of his health. He's known this for a long time. He makes a prayer. He prays that Allah will turn this fear into faith, and this hyperawareness of his body into peace. He asks Allah to flip the switch just as suddenly as it had been turned on.

Just twenty-two days after they get back home from four weeks here on the island, Ramadan will start. One thing fear cannot bully is hunger. He knows this. Patience may attempt to fend it off, but only faith can stand up to it. He's looking forward to fasting this year. Maybe this will be the cure he's been searching for. His faith reaches its peak during those 29 or 30 days each year.

He reaches for the Qur'an again and reads for another half an hour, remembering how much he used to love these moments. It used to be coffee, though. Since the sensations started, coffee was the first thing he had to get rid of. He misses it every morning. Tea is no substitute.

He reads:

When trouble touches a man, he cries unto us, lying on his side, sitting, or standing. But when we have solved his trouble, he passes on his way as if he had never cried to us. The deeds of transgressors seem fair in their eyes.

A lizard appears from under a dried brain coral that decorates the garden. The reptile hugs close to it like countless fish would have when it was soft and underwater, teeming with life. Now it sits bleached, like a skull left to dry in the Caribbean sun. The lizard doesn't flinch as he sets down the Qur'an to watch. It scrambles on top of the round coral, head back, regal. He notices that the lizard's tail is half gone, as if someone has chopped it off. Despite this deformity, the half-tail still coils upward as the miniature head arrogantly looks around.

His wife walks through a small opening in the shrubs, ducking under a strand of spider web that's hooked itself to a leaf on the other side of the clearing. She follows the strand back to the main web and takes a photo of the small black speck in its center.

"We've got to start feeding these little guys," he tells her.

She reviews the photo, then looks over at him in the corner. He points to the lizard. She notices the tail immediately.

"It looks like someone chopped it off," she says as it darts into the garden. "Probably the gardener. With his machete."

The head gardener is a Haitian man who everyone at the condo goes out of their way to show their appreciation for. The French-speaking guests, like his wife, who is Quebecois, often attempt to speak French with him, but he always switches back to English shyly after a few brief responses.

"I don't think Miguel would do something like that," he tells his wife.

"Maybe one of the others," she suggests.

This is their sixth February spent on the island. The pandemic forced them to take a two-year hiatus, so it's a place that has been in their hearts for the better part of a decade. But because they do not own here, this is the sixth unit they've stayed in. Their second time on the ground floor. It's always a different condo. The last ground floor unit they rented was on the other side of the building, facing the public road down to the beach. That one was damp and under constant shade, and their clothes didn't dry well that month.

They fed many lizards on that other shaded patio, though. It was a unit they appreciated for this alone. His wife had set up what she called a menagerie. Rice, dried bread, table scraps — it all ended up on the patio floor in separate feeding stations.

He and his wife have been kicked around since their last time on this island. She is dealing with family traumas, some of which go back to her childhood and have only recently resurfaced and spread to other members of her family. He has not felt like himself since he had Covid.

Although it was only what an ER doctor had called a "mild case," a few weeks after the virus cleared, these sensations started. Then they became progressively worse. He developed the retinal inflammation and cotton wool spots exactly 18 days after the initial sore throat. Then costochondritis a few days after that. When both issues seemed to resolve weeks later, he began to be plagued by these odd sensations and insomnia.

His illness and her family issues had not knocked before entering their lives. When they arrived, they took up residence immediately, and, like most guests, were quiet, almost respectful at first. Before long, things progressed from antagonistic to all-out destructive.

To complete the year, his mother had died at the end of December. Her funeral was just one month before they returned to the condo, the airfare paid only two weeks before she died. His wife would often say that her parents were dead. She had not spoken to them for over two years.

Since he first accepted Islam around twelve or thirteen years ago — he's not sure of the exact year off hand — he's felt as if he could face anything. He attempted to increase his faith during this last year. For fear, he thinks you need a deliberate set of beliefs. Faith in Allah and knowing who Allah is will naturally lead him to the only justifiable fear. The fear of God.

Although he does not consider himself a coward, something about this health-related fear has left him one. Something is different about this. He believes the only way out is to strive for faith and to resist hypocrisy. In all its forms.

"Faith combats cowardliness and hypocrisy fuels it," he notes down while finishing his tea.

While writing this — his wife back inside making a pot of coffee for herself — he remembers reading something, somewhere. Monkeys can be trained to fear fake snakes, but not bright flowers. Humans, on the other hand, can learn to fear flowers. They only need to be told that they are snakes.

"No day is a bad day, God made all those days," he says to himself as he sets down his stack of notecards to walk down to the pool.

Howard notices him as he stands looking around, listening to the palms rattle in the wind.

"I heard you died." Howard says.

They shake hands, and he laughs at the r-dropping of the Boston accent that blows through Howard's voice.

"I feel like I did," he tells him.

"That's just an old joke."

He and his wife had met Howard at Coral Beach on their first visit to the island while waiting on a jitney to take them all into Lucaya. Howard introduced the couple to his wife Martha, dropping the r in her name just as much as he did pronouncing his own. Howard and Martha had invited them over to their condo for dinner the day before they left the island that first year. After the dinner, Howard had asked indifferently what time their taxi was picking them up the next day. And in the morning, as they came wheeling their luggage down to the front door to leave, Howard and Martha were waiting, holding a small ribbon across the path.

"You've reached the finish line," Martha had said as he and his wife walked through the ribbon together. Everyone lingering around the lobby clapped, and they told them all that they'd see them again next year. They have kept their word and have been returning ever since.

"When did you guys get in?" Howard asks.

"Just yesterday."

Howard's skin has already taken on its leather quality, brown like the locust pods that he'll watch his wife collect later in the day when they go for a walk. Howard's white, stubbly eyebrows and beard line contrast sharply against his tan face.

The two talk about how the last time they were both here was in 2020, just before the pandemic was declared. He had heard that Howard and Martha were practically evacuated off the island.

"Maybe the last plane out," Howard says. "Pool drained, gate to the beach locked. Prime Minister making new edicts every day. It was like the movie Argo."

"That must have been only a few weeks after we left ourselves."

"Silver Airways dumped us off in Florida, and we had to find our way back to Pembroke just in time for lockdown."

"My wife and I were separated most of that time."

"Ah, yes," Howard says, nodding his head. "They shut down the border. Martha and I thought about you two when that happened."

"For over a year her only way into the U.S. was to fly to Boston."

"That must've been really difficult."

"It was ridiculous. She crossed a few times and stayed for six months once."

"That's too bad."

"Well, we did get to spend two weeks traveling through New Mexico. It was the best trip of my life," he tells Howard.

Now he's remembering looking down at his phone, watching a livestream of the Canadian Prime Minister announcing that border restrictions would be put in place. The anger gathers within him again, watching himself in that moment. He feels it now. It forms inside him, fresh, like one of the hurricanes that have destroyed this island so many times.

It was a difficult situation. For him, one of isolation and feverish rage. There is a road in his town that straddles the border with Quebec, where hundreds of people would gather in each country just to see and talk with family and loved ones stranded on the other side. He sees again in his memory the dystopian yellow barricade tape separating them all, and the face of the Prime Minister trying to grow a beard as he made the announcement. A stupid face, he thinks.

"I try not to think about it much, Howard. The whole thing makes me so upset, still."

There is a brief pause in the conversation.

"Did you get your shots?" Howard asks.

Looking over Howard's shoulder he notices two well-dressed Bahamian men sitting at the pool bar. One of them is fidgeting with two cell phones, while the other looks around with pursed lips. Without answering, he tells Howard they'll have to catch up another time. His nerves are firing erratically, and tension overtakes every muscle. His movements feel awkward. Even his words feel tense.

"We just got in, and we're going to head out for a walk. Are you guys still playing pickleball?"

"Every morning," Howard says.

"I'm a pasty mess," he hears his wife say as they leave the condo and head toward Royal Palm Way. His skin feels clammy.

They have no specific route in mind, but instinctively turn again toward the ocean a few streets over at Sea Gate Lane, a road lined with large trees and imperial houses. They look up, listening to birds and perspiring in the sun.

The trees have twisted root systems rising and clumping above ground, standing tall like the Taíno chiefs who would have once ruled over this island. His wife has dubbed them all "tribal trees," and says that she sees one that is a pregnant woman. A honey locust above looks bare and dead, with brown leather pods hanging from it like Christmas ornaments, heaps lying on the ground beneath. His wife grabs a handful, shaking them like musical instruments.

"Should we stop and pay our condolences to Ed?" she asks, seeing the yellow "birdwatching" signs posted.

He recalls their first year on the island, and his wife on this same road squatting down for a dog being walked by a thin woman with straight white hair. The dog had pulled hard on the leash, trying not to run as his wife waited for it to arrive.

"He rarely reacts to people," the woman had said. Her name was Erika. After a brief conversation, Erika had invited them over to see what she referred to as her "cattery."

The cattery was an outdoor, screened-in structure more like a giant aviary than a cat cage. Some sections had been closed off, a few cats isolated from others. That visit he had filmed a long conversation with Erika as she guided them through the cattery. He told Erika that his mother had started a cat rescue in Indiana called "The Cats of St. Francis."

"My middle name is Francis," he had told Erika while filming.

Erika explained that the cattery was needed for the strays on the island and helped preserve the bird population. The bird population was on display at the other end of her tropical garden property, a place that she called her "bird sanctuary." He had recorded the interview to send to his mother. His wife had taken photos and talked to the cats through the cage.

Erika invited them in to meet her husband, Ed Gates. Ed invited them to stay for pizza.

"Come back for a bird feeding," Ed requested as they were leaving. "You can visit as often as you want while you're on the island. Come around one hour before sunset."

From that year on he and his wife would refer to this place as the Garden of the Gates. Visiting the Garden of the Gates was not part of their usual routine on the island. Most years they didn't visit at all. One unit they rented was on the fourth floor and looked directly down at the sanctuary, which from above appeared as just another patch of wild bush hugging the sea. That year he watched the parrots squawking and playing down below like dolphins in the sky. From above you wouldn't know the sanctuary existed at all.

"Yes, let's go pay our respects to Ed," he tells his wife.

As they approach the Garden of the Gates he asks a woman taking out the garbage if Ed is home. The woman leads them out back, ducking under a branch to a small pavilion with a long table in the center. Ed sits at the head of the table, on the phone, asking someone about "Germany." He hears the word "lawyers," mentioned a few times.

At the other end sits a frail old man, ghost-like and motionless, placed in the corner of the table like an invalid who's been wheeled up to a group inside a nursing home. The woman who led them inside tells them that her name is Nancy, and the old man is her husband. He may have had a stroke a few days ago, she mentions nervously.

"He's waiting to see a neurologist," Nancy says. She's visibly anxious for Ed to be off the phone, and finally she mentions that they need a ride home from Ed. "We can walk," she says after a short pause.

Nancy's husband makes no movements.

"I've been speaking with Erika's brother. In Germany," Ed says when the call has ended.

"Ed, this couple has just arrived to see you," Nancy says.

Ed sits pale, his hair as white as his skin, with black wraparound sunglasses that make him appear blind.

"Vaguely," Ed says when asked if he remembered their visit years ago.

"We had pizza. And I made a short film about the cattery with Erika," he says.

"Yes. Vaguely."

"We can walk home," Nancy says again, even more nervous.

"Nonsense. Frank can't walk," Ed responds.

The old man finally turns and looks over his shoulder.

"They think I'm a porcelain doll," Frank says. His blue eyes bulge above a maniac's smile. His head has all but reduced to a skull wrapped in tight skin.

"No, no. You can give them a ride. We just wanted to stop by, Ed, and say how sorry we were to learn of Erika's passing," his wife says.

"We follow the Bahamian news," he puts in after.

Ed nods his head as if the words "Bahamian news" have finally answered some question he's been pondering.

"It was a poor year," Ed says, as he continues to nod.

"We can walk back. Stay and visit Ed," Nancy suggests.

They can see it was a bad time to stop in and excuse themselves again.

"We have coffee here every morning. At ten. Except Sunday. Do come back," Ed says.

"We'll bring some diabetic cookies for you, Ed," his wife says.

"You're not diabetic, are you?" Ed asks.

"No, but we remembered that you are."

"Do come back before you leave the island, and stop by the bird sanctuary anytime. About one hour before sunset."

They pass through the sanctuary on their way out. Like a jungle in miniature, it smells of earth after a rain. It has not rained in days. A cement statue of a dog sits slightly off one of the small paths, almost completely overtaken by vegetation.

"I sense Erika here," his wife says.

He thinks about how much time and effort went into the creation of this place, and how quickly the minor details have fallen to ruin. The natural takeover after a life of routine maintenance now adds to its wild beauty.

Because there is a substantial amount of money behind it, he thinks to himself, this work will carry on past Erika's death and Ed's old age. But, that money will run out at some point. Ed will be gone just like all the Taíno chiefs are gone. All gardens eventually fail.

He thinks of his mother, and the gardens she maintained in his childhood backyard. He remembers the butterfly garden she created in the hole where the swimming pool used to be, and the potting shed his father built for her in the corner that leaned against a neighbor's fence. He sees the brown grass that covered it all when he brought his wife to see where he grew up after he and his siblings finally got his parents out. The house was gutted, the yard dead. That house visited him often on nights punctuated with bad dreams.

Entire lifetimes are spent in busywork, he thinks while looking around, to preserve these appearances. Once that hold to the bottom gives way, we're set again in motion, carried off from places we briefly call home. No way to adjust.

He's reminded of the Quranic verse:

The end, for those who don't believe, is sighs and regrets.

They enter several narrow trails that wind through thick vegetation. There are a few forks in the path, spiderwebs hanging across. They all lead to the center where a bench sits in front of a small pond.

With the light cutting through the trees, everything around them is quiet except for the sound of flitting wings. Some wings are small and rapid; others large and slow. He listens to the sound of his wife's camera shutter firing as the wings descend on the feeding stations around them. He sees her smile as she momentarily looks at him. He pushes his face into the back of her head as she watches the birds, breathing in with eyes closed. The warmth of the sun is in her hair already.

They will not return to this sanctuary for the rest of the month. Several times, later on — maybe it's a Saturday, or Sunday — they'll remember the invitation for coffee. After a few words of how nice it would be, they will easily move on to something else.

"You always go right," he says after lunch.

He knows where to find her when she goes down to the beach before he does. Standing in front of the large bathroom mirror, he wets his hands before applying sunscreen. He covers the inside edges of his ears, and his eyelids feel heavy with the cream.

He locks the black iron gate over the screen door which is kept open and squeezes out to the path through the shrubs. He turns right when he reaches the sand and sees his wife standing with water up to her ankles, looking silently out at the wide turquoise expanse.

The water pulls back across their feet as he stands beside her. They sink a bit more each time it goes through. Small waves break at their feet, tapping a rhythm against their skin. This is the rhythm of leisure. The water is cold and their legs adjust quickly. The sun and warm air hold them while the soft hiss of each wave rolls out.

The water finally comes up to her stomach. She holds her arms high in the air. An occasional wave passes through, just enough to splash further up, shocking the dry parts of her body. She's never been the one to go straight in. It usually takes her time. He was always the one to dive in without thought; he has always liked cold water. But today she can tell that he is unwilling to go fully in. Now he only thinks it could upset his symptoms. They take away more and more each day.

Swimming became a worry before the trip. Standing in the water, he's thinking about the hotel restaurant in Montreal the night before the flight, and how his head vibrated through his jaw. It was not like times before. He had felt like he was on the verge of blacking out. It was relentless. His wife had seen that something was wrong. It was always visible in his eyes, she would say.

The thought of being able to swim again seemed far off, the way it had in the summer when they visited their favorite local lake. It was just another thing he couldn't do anymore.

"I'll just stand here," he tells her.

"Come out for a swim," she says, though she's still not swimming herself.

He moves out further to reach her, and the water is almost up to his neck. The cold feels good. She turns around and smiles. The joy in her face touches him again, just as it had while she was taking pictures at the bird sanctuary. It makes him proud. She shoves off with her head above the water, paddling like a child.

He stands back thinking about it, and the ocean closes over him. The sound has changed. He's suddenly inside a different world. A temporary world. His eyes are closed when he comes up and wipes his hand across his wet face.

His wife continues treading water, the top of her head and most of her hair still dry. He's free to dive back down now. Every time he comes up, he's drawn back underneath. This time he sees his wife with her head back, arms out wide, floating on her back. Her face is all that's left out of the water.

She rises and falls with the leisurely movement of the sea. He imitates her stillness, her submission. They float together on their backs like a surface hatching of insects, waiting for their wings to dry and fly them away.

With his eyes closed, he imagines the ocean as nothing more than a small amount of water inside a cupped hand. The sun, a face looking down and smiling.

He's thankful and speaks the prayer that came to him on the plane.

"Oh Allah, turn my fear into faith, and this panic into peace."

Having washed closer to shore as they float with closed eyes, a wave finally breaks on top of them. They tumble and laugh, smiling at each other.

She walks back to the blanket, then digs sand to accommodate the arch in her lower back before lying down to dry in the sun.

He pushes a mound under the blanket for his head, and, using it as a pillow, closes his eyes. His breath is clear. No congestion. He stares out at the bright red light of the sun behind his closed eyelids. His body feels better, but he's conscious of how pale his skin is, how different to hers. Once his face is dry he opens his eyes and puts on his glasses. He gets up to leave for a meeting he has coming up. The tightness of his skin lets him know he's stayed long enough for the first day. He walks back to take a shower, and his wife stays in the sand and eventually falls asleep.

She opens the screen door just as his meeting is wrapping up. The stress and relief of the last hour has overwhelmed him. His shoulders have remained hiked and clenched since the start. His right eye feels strained and sensitive, like he's been holding it open wider than the other. He watches as his wife examines her tan lines, noticeably darker on the front side.

She cooks mahi-mahi for dinner, and they eat outside on the patio. They eat as the sun sets down upon this giant sandbar in the middle of the ocean. The string lights draped through the shrubs click on. He thinks about how important it is for him to take care of his wife in every way. In every detail.

The weather is mild, comfortable. Unlike most summer nights where they live up north, halfway between the equator and the North Pole.

Now he's thinking about how he had not cried at his mother's funeral just weeks ago. He remembers how much better his symptoms felt those two weeks he and his wife were back in Indiana for it. The sensations had almost disappeared completely until the day before they flew back to Vermont. He could pinpoint the exact moment they returned, as he sat on his sister's couch talking with his nephew.

The strange vibration began in his left armpit and radiated down to his wrist. By the time they were on the plane the next day and Indiana behind them, his right bicep was constantly twitching.

"That thing's really jumping around," his wife had said mid-flight, as she held his arm.

"It's driving me crazy."

"Be thankful it doesn't hurt," she had said.

Here and now, at dinner, he's thankful for everything in front of them. That which is behind just feels behind. He looks down at the simple garden under his chair. The half-tailed lizard is stalking a moth that's been led to one of the light bulbs within the shrub. The lizard makes an attempt, leaping, snapping its mouth without grace or coordination. It tries a few more times to catch the bug in its mouth but ultimately fails. It's as if the reptile is not designed for such a hunt.

The timer lights click off, and the lizard and the moth disappear with it.

With the dishes and kitchen clean, they go for a walk down Acacia Street. The road follows the ocean, but with thick bush and trees between, they can only hear it breaking against the sand in the dark. This walk is a nightly routine they've established since coming to the island. Halfway down the road the bush clears, and the Oceanview Condos sit spotlighted against the night sky. A sky which still has some purple left inside. A large metal gate closes off its palm-lined driveway.

The Oceanview has always been a place that represents success to him, and every year he tells himself he is going to work hard on his business when he gets back home, and one day return to buy a unit at the more prestigious development. His wife has taken his photo in front of the gate many times on these walks.

Tonight they only walk past, saying very little about it, and continue down to the end of the road. When they pass by again, he only glances briefly.

As they settle in for the night, through the open screen door they hear shallow waves breaking. He thinks about his conversation down by the pool with Howard earlier. His wife will soon be as tan as Howard. He can already see the sun on her face. Her eyes are always clear and well-loved.

He looks at the desk and propped up against the base of a lamp is the laminated bookmark that was given out at his mother's funeral. It is light blue with two photos of her smiling. One young, black and white, and the other middle-aged, in color. The corners are rounded. It reads, "in loving memory," and the final words, "at rest." Above is a December date.

A glowing set of eyes appears from under the patio table, steadily looking inside the condo. He and his wife both notice.

His wife carefully approaches the screen and squats down.

"Well hello," she says.

The feral cat sits like a sphinx.

She turns back toward him and says, "your mother would feed her."

His mother's obsession with cats had snowballed toward the end. They had removed fifty-seven strays from the home he grew up in when the family finally managed to intervene. They had rescued his parents. Some cats had died. Some he and his nephew removed from a basement freezer.

He can remember vividly that dark night, their flashlights bouncing around the dirty walls as they scanned the place. Every half-lit corner took on the physical representation of madness. It was a place of nightmares. It was a place his parents had both lived only days before. How? He could not imagine. You could not imagine. What would it take to get to that point? What did it take to survive?

He and his nephew had removed seven frozen blocks wrapped in plastic grocery bags from the freezer that night. They placed them in the trunk of his father's car and drove to an apartment building nearby, throwing them inside an empty dumpster. One by one. That scene — the sound of the metal echoing hollow with each toss — had been stamped in his memory.

And they had removed the frozen blocks just in time. The next day, animal control moved in and took those that remained living amongst the filth. No dead animals were found, and no charges were ever laid. No public humiliation to suffer. The suffering would come later, remembering it all. The suffering would come now, remembering that his mother's mind had gone by the time the family finally stepped in.

As his wife sits here, now speaking soft and childlike with the feral cat under the patio table, he remembers the moment he entered the house to get his mother out. The brown carpet was torn and covered with filth, the wood from the corners of the stairs poking through as he walked up and into the kitchen. He was wearing a respirator.

He begged his mother to come with him. To leave the home. He was frantic. She just cried and said, "all I wanted was for you to come over for a coffee."

"Mom," he shouted. "I'm wearing a respirator. The smell of this place is suffocating you."

His mother had seen the device on his face but was unaware of the desperation, the insanity of the situation. She wouldn't leave. She refused and said there was nothing wrong with the house. He left, drove down the road, parked, and started walking around the neighborhood. He called his wife who was stuck in Canada.

"You can't just leave her there," his wife had said.

Marching back toward the car, smelling the ammonia on his clothes from only a few minutes inside, feeling it in his eyes, he vowed to himself to save her that night.

"Bismillah," he said, entering through the foyer and back up the brown, filth-covered stairs. This time he took off the respirator and immediately started crying as hard as he's ever cried, begging her to come with him to his sister's house.

"I just want us all to be together while I'm in town," he said with tears in his eyes.

"Oh honey," his mom said, reaching to embrace him. "Of course I'll come. Just give me a few minutes."

The only way he was able to reach her was through tears.

She never went back to the house after that. They all made sure of that.

When they realized the house was going to be condemned, he managed to trick her into an apartment his sister found. It didn't take more than a few days at that apartment for a couple of stray cats to be seen outside, lurking. It was as if the cats somehow sensed her obsession with them.

When he drove back to Vermont after that difficult season, he felt that he had saved his parents. He will never forget pulling away from the apartment, his mother standing in the doorway saying, "go with God." It broke his heart, but he thanked Allah for it. Immediately.

His wife would later remind him that he had saved his mother twice. First, in getting her out of the house, and second, calling an ambulance from nearly a thousand miles away when he learned over the phone that she was not eating anymore.

"Is she drinking anything?" he had asked his father.

"I don't know."

He asked again, more sternly.

"I don't think so."

The ambulance dropped her off at the hospital, near death from dehydration. A few weeks later she was in a nursing home, dying slowly with the others.

These hard memories have come in and out ever since they first swept through like a fog. Coming out of them now, he's drawn to the image of his wife who is giving the stray cat on the patio a piece of turkey bacon. It hisses at her while pulling on the uncooked strip.

"One of her eyes is hurt," his wife says.

She takes a photo of the feral cat as it eats in the dark, still looking inside. She pulls up the image on the camera, and zooms in. It's clear. One eye is dead.

The right.