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players and the firing of losing managers, and depending on the season, all the other daily matters of the Patriots, or the Bruins, or the Sox. After all this time, she can’t for the life of her see why he imagines these things are of any concern to her. Still, if he didn’t give her the scores or his opinion on matters like the designated hitter or the new baseball commissioner, would they talk at all?
    This morning, Ned is quiet. The Sox must have had the day off yesterday. Or is the season over? Rose doesn’t always listen and gets easily confused about these things.
    She starts the eggs, gritting her teeth against the blare of the television. Some days the noise of it seems to drill into her brain and settle there, buzzing on and on. It is surprising that someone in Washington, D.C., has never investigated what television waves do to peoples’ brains. Or maybe they have and are keeping it quiet since it would be bad for the economy. They have certainly kept other upsetting things to themselves for years and years. Like the results of research on cigarette smoking, or all the horrid side effects from the stuff women have injected in their breasts to make them bigger. Silicone. That’s right. Rose remembers the term suddenly as she is cooking Ned’s eggs in a fry pan that is silicone coated. How could any woman actually want to have that put inside her body?
    Some days she wants to snatch the set right off the counter, cart it out behind the garage, and take an ax to it. She would just hit it and hit it until there was nothing left, until someone coming upon the remains would not have the least idea that just hours before Bryant Gumball had been smiling out from it.
    Calling the anchorman Bryant Gumball instead of Bryant Gumbel is Ned’s morning joke. He says it every morning and then laughs as if this is the first time in his life he’s ever said it. If he says it today, she thinks, I swear I’ll hit him in the head with the skillet. She stays at the stove until the urge passes.
    A voice chirps from the Sony, brightly offering dependable relief from incontinence.
At breakfast.
Why would advertising people think anyone would want to hear about that sort of thing with their morning coffee? She is continually astonished at the things the TV people come right out with, bold as brass—things like sanitary tampons, which weren’t even whispered about when she was a girl.
    â€œWhat’s on your agenda?” Ned asks when she serves his eggs.
    As long as she can remember, he’s asked this exact same question over breakfast. Years ago she made up the answers.
Oh, lunch with Rock
Hudson and dancing with Fred Astaire. Just a quick trip to Bali, but I’ll be
back in time for dinner.
“Rose, you’re a card,” he would say, as if she were the funniest person on the planet.
    â€œNothing special,” she answers, serving up his eggs.
    â€œCan’t imagine how you keep yourself busy all day,” he says between a mouthful of eggs and a swig of coffee. He still has hopes that she will return to her job at Fosters.
    â€œI manage,” she says.
    He pours himself another cup of coffee, one he will take with him. That makes his third cup so far, and he has only been up a little more than an hour. He should cut down. But he’s a grown-up. It’s up to him. AFTER HE LEAVES, SHE FLICKS OFF THE TV, THEN DOES THE dishes. She wipes down the counters and replaces the quilted rooster over the toaster. As she does every morning, she empties the trash although the two of them barely generate enough to warrant the task, then goes upstairs to strip their bed and put on new sheets. For weeks now, she has been changing the sheets every day, hoping that will help her get rid of the itchy spot on her stomach. So far it hasn’t made a difference. But she likes the feeling of getting in bed each night and sliding between clean linen, linen slightly rough and smelling