Chapter 32

“Time, the passage of time—the loss incurred by time in our lives—distresses us. Tennessee Williams, you know, said something about that, about each tick of the clock saying, loss, loss, loss.”

I snorted. “Well, good old Tennessee wasn’t that happy a man, was he? But that was just the age he lived in, when being gay was something abhorrent.”

“Was it?” Pat said. “I disagree. Others have said similar things about time. The Christian writer, C.S. Lewis—I know you like his fiction—wrote that because we are so disturbed by the passage of time, our natural home—those were his words—was probably a place where there was no time.”

I stared at Pat, knowing that she didn’t have any religious faith.

“Heaven?”

She nodded, and we both were silent for a time.

“Well,” I said. “It’s comforting, though I don’t think I know how there couldbe no time.”

“Probably something about no loss—tick, tick, tick, you know.”

I shrugged. “Go on.”