And the voice in her head echoed, "Six months...."
"Vassi, isn't there someone you can talk to now?"
He didn't answer her.
Julia looked around the room. "Vassi, are you still here? Vassi? Vassi, if you don't talk, I can't tell if you're still here! Vassi, please answer me. Did I talk too much? I didn't mean to run on about my problems. I know you have a job to do. Maybe you can squeeze me in. I don't want to keep you from your work. Vassi, you didn't go, did you? You didn't leave me! Don't leave. I believe in you. I believe in you...."
And now she had the aloneness she had longed for. He was gone and she would be left with the Mrs. Shultzes and the doctor.
She went from the living room to the kitchen to the bathroom and back into the living room, listening, hoping to catch the small sound of his breathing. But her body would not be quiet and she heard nothing except herself.
She stood for a long while looking down at the bed. The sunlight drifted from the pillow onto the covers and finally spilled off the foot of the bed onto the floor and the room was a shade darker. She was a stone, but a stone whose blood gurgled and stomach rumbled and heart beat and pulse pounded, so loudly she could hear nothing else.
Her legs gave way and she crumpled to the bed and she was silent at last.
The breathing came from the direction of the window.
She spoke into the covers. "Vassi, why didn't you answer me?"