Lilies smell terrible. They remind me of your mother’s garden. That strong stench of them. The blind dog you hated. The grass uncut. And in your basement: dust. So much dust it seemed whatever was down there lived off dust. On weekends, you got carried away to your father’s house in the blue whale of a Chevrolet. We’d talk on the phone for hours. Tell stories about murderers. Tell stories about monsters. Hoping they never caught us. Hoping they weren’t what we’d become. Once, when you were about ten, I called you and you were crying. You were crying because your father wouldn’t wake up. And one day, he never woke up again. He used to say: “It’s not the end of the world, but I can see it from here.” And I think of it often. I’m thinking of it now, cutting the stems of these lilies, putting them away in a vase. Even though they have nothing to do with him. Even though, right now, I see no end. I cut stems. I believe an end is near but for someone else. Not for us; never for us. And look: these lilies! How fresh, how pungent! And look: they’ve already begun to wilt.