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gravitational force.”
    “Look at all these cakes,” Lorraine said, as if Gordon hadn’t said anything at all, “There are four cakes here. What, do people just have a cake sitting around in case somebody dies?” Nora crept closer to the hall, where she could hear more clearly.
    “Mom,” Gordon persisted, “what I mean is that the way Georgia would have died from the cancer would have been a lot worse. Peaceful deaths aren’t really peaceful. Your lungs fill up. It’s like drowning in your own body. But think about on TV, how a gazelle looks when a lion grabs it,” he said, words coming faster, “You know, at the last moment, the deer just lets go? That’s when the endorphins kick in—it means Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 25
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    ‘endogenous morphine,’ Mom, your body’s own morphine, and so even the worst kind of bleeding or bruising, well, you probably feel pretty good during the last seconds.”
    “Shut up, Gordon, honey, just shut up,” said Lorraine quietly.
    “Lor,” Mark put in quietly. “Leave him alone. He’s only trying to help . . .” Nora peeked around the edge of the door. Her sister-in-law sat huddled in a shawl, a line of untouched plates of pie and cups of coffee arranged on the table before her, with the two men standing, leaning toward her, both of them so tall and her so little. It struck Nora that they often appeared that way, leaning down to Lorraine as she told them what was what; it reminded Nora of one of those funny photos you saw once in a while in the Country Journal . A bantam hen set unawares on a clutch of Canadian goose eggs, and when they hatched, there’d be this tiny little mother with huge chicks four times her size toddling along behind her.
    “I know he is, Mark,” Lorraine said. “But he doesn’t think.” She scanned the counters again. “Look at all this food. Who’s going to eat it?
    I’m glad I don’t have to. I don’t ever have to eat again if I don’t want to.
    I don’t have to keep my strength up anymore.”
    “Yes, you do, Lor,” Mark said.
    “No, I don’t,” Lorraine answered. “Well, you take it home, Gordie.”
    “I don’t eat cake,” he said. Gordie, Nora thought, was a health nut.
    “Well, someone will eat it. Maybe Mike or Matt. Maybe cousin Delia. She doesn’t look like she ever missed a meal.”
    “Lor!” Mark chided.
    “Well, it’s just so . . . isn’t it? It’s disrespectful. People chowing down like it’s their last meal.”
    “It’s what people do,” Mark said softly.
    “All I meant was,” Gordon began again, “if you just think about it the way it really is, if she would have died at home, it would have been better for us, but not for her. That’s all I meant.” Lorraine’s voice, when she replied, made Nora’s neck prickle. “I warn you, Gordon. You’re the one who doesn’t get it. The way it really is. This is your sister! Your only . . . my only . . .”
    “Your only . . . what?”

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    “My only daughter.”
    “I thought you were going to say, my only child.”
    “I would never say that. And Gordie, for God’s sake, this is not about you, so just, just shut up, honey!” And Lorraine was up, knocking over cups in her flight, brushing past Nora, her shawl cloaking her head to toe, her dark shape triangular, like bats’ wings, dark on dark.
    Nora expelled the breath she had been holding. She could barely see Gordon’s blond head in the cage of his clean hands, where he sat slumped at the table, his elbows soaked by the rivulets of dripping coffee, his knees blocked by overturned chairs. Mark stood beside him, his hand extended, not quite touching Gordon’s shoulder.
    “It’s okay, son,” Mark said.
    “Make her come back, Dad,” Gordon said.
    “She will,” said Mark.
    Patting the bulge at her waist where the sweatshirt lay, Nora pictured her niece up there, still tethered to earth like a kite,