She was, he realized, trying to grin. He believed that God would let him live to perpetuate his poor lost darlings memory for a long, long time.
""How many times, God damn it? He bore down, once strong and now flabby muscles quivering like jelly, lips peeling back from his gritted teeth, and the wheelchair slowly pivoted. The cellar windows, as if reflecting Annies paranoia (and there was nothing strange about that, he thought; didnt all houses come, after awhile, to reflect the personalities of their inhabitants? So I asked if hed like to take a cold Pepsi along with him because the day was so hot and he said yes, thanks, that was very kind.
Then, with a deep and almost painful timidity, she offered the only editorial suggestion she ever made to him. Let that be the end of her.
A queer predestinate sense of failure filled his mind even before he got the handset to his ear and heard the nothing. and if I give you what you want, you wont like it, and you wont want it anymore.