Mother's eyes open and close with clock-like precision. Her head is tilted away from me, towards the window, where she sees, I suppose, some hesitant, gray version of the skyline. I lean into her field of vision--there is no registration of any kind. I wonder if these are the sorts of things she'll remember as she dies; if, in the final moments, what tumbles out of the body are not the memories one has most looked over and cherished, but these immeasurable spaces in between; as if one had spent a lifetime tying shoes or gazing at irregularities in the bathroom tile.