2025-06-30
30 分钟This is The Guardian.
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My husband and son suffered strokes 30 years apart.
Shockingly little had changed by Sheila Hale, read by Phyllida Nash.
On the night before the accident, John and I and our son Jay, who was then 26,
lingered in the garden drinking wine and enjoying the midsummer scent of jasmine and lilies.
We talked about the Manet exhibition we had just seen at the National Gallery.
We probably talked about how the end of the Cold War might affect the chances of Bill Clinton winning the presidential election against George H.W.
Bush in November.
I know what John thought about that.
I only wish I could recall his words.
The next morning, 30th of July 1992, John got up before me as he always did.
In the kitchen, I found the contents of the dishwasher, knives,
forks, spoons, plates, mugs jumbled together on the table.
This was odd
because unloading the dishwasher was the one domestic ritual he willingly performed.
It would be years before I learned the reason.
At the time, I put it down to absent mindedness.