She seems to live in her own world.

"Laura?" Someone might say, wondering what she's thinking. Wondering if she's okay. Maybe she's just tired. Or depressed.

"Do you think she's depressed?"

She's not. Not really. Not like the times she could feel it physically — her limbs so heavy and everything such an effort. She doesn't feel particularly sad. She isn't weighed with despair or hopelessness.

She has the daydream.

She's worked it all out; she knows exactly how it will be. Alone, at last, in her own little place — a place near the sea — small, but clean. She'll have a comfortable bed, a table, a chair. She'll have a porch with ferns and flowers in pots. She will have just enough and it will be everything she needs.

He doesn't know what to think. She cried out in her sleep last night. "Help!" She yelled as if she was drowning and it woke him up, his heart pounding with fear. "Bad dream," she mumbled and went back to sleep, but it kept him up for hours, his brain awhirl. He worried about her, about work, the kids, and the cars. The damn cars. There are four cars in their driveway now and not one of them is reliable.

He lay awake, thinking about what he needed to do. Replacing the battery and the starter on Jeremy's Chevy might do some good. If he could just get him to pay attention and take care of the damn thing instead of constantly playing video games with his lowlife friends — which Laura allows rather than have any conflict. And what can he do? He gets shot down every time he tries to help. He can't make a suggestion, a comment, or a rule. It's beyond his control. All he can do now is just stay out of the way. Stay out of the way, that's his mantra. That's his tactic for survival.

She wonders: Is this what they call creative visualization?

She has an image she relies upon when she's especially anxious or stressed. It's an image she's used at the dentist's office. She sees herself comfortably curled in a hammock, swinging gently back and forth, with details that are clear and exact. There's the sound, a slight creak of the ropes against the tree, and a soft breeze rustling leaves.

This image is very effective, but she's afraid she might have used it too much. It comes to her automatically now. Unexpectedly. Like yesterday in the grocery store while she was standing in the checkout line. There was a crying baby and a grossly overweight man with a cough in line ahead of her. There were sensational tabloid headlines, celebrity magazines, miracle diet books, racks of candy, and terrible music, which would cause some insipid song to appear unrelentingly in her head for the rest of the day.

She closed her eyes for a moment and there it was — she was swinging in her hammock. The image had just come to her, and it was so pleasant she stayed with it. She curled up tighter and smiled to herself. She might have even swayed. It seemed like it was only a moment, but when she opened her eyes the baby and the fat man were gone. The cashier was saying, "M'am?"

Maybe it?s the news, he thinks. Maybe it's too much NPR. She listens to it constantly, not only in the car and the kitchen, but now in the bathroom and the bedroom, too. Maybe it?s just all the bad news that?s getting her down? He sometimes hides the paper if the news is especially bad. He frequently misplaces the opinion page.

Lately she's been obsessed with cleaning things out — all the closets and drawers. She's been throwing things away or donating to the Goodwill. She's also been rearranging where everything goes, for reasons which seem inexplicable and capricious to him. He was unloading the dishwasher last night and stood perplexed with a plastic food container in his hands, desperately trying to remember where it went.

"Oh, for God's sake," she said. She swung a cupboard door open, gestured dramatically, and regarded him with disdain.

They don't talk about things so much anymore; it's been a long time since they laughed together, but at least their sex life is good. They frequently have sex in the early morning while they are both still half-asleep. They press against each other, spooning, him behind her, and that's how they do it.

Her sex fantasy is about being a porn star. While they are having sex she imagines they are being filmed. There's a crew around the bed, bright lights, all eyes on her, and the guy behind her is a hot young stud.

He thinks about the girl in his office. Twenty-two. He thinks about how he saw her one day, bent over, in heels and a little skirt, pulling a jam out of the copy machine. He thinks about her in that skirt, hiked up. He imagines them in the supply closet.

She remembers when it seemed they always knew what the other was thinking. When they were first together, a couple of idealistic kids in love, they were in sync, soul mates, with all the same ideas about things. They had passion. Concern. But he doesn't seem to care about anything these days. He works, eats, reads the paper, watches TV, and sleeps.

"We should go out to a movie," she says.

"Okay," he says.

They're sitting at the dining room table after dinner. They've both had exhausting days. He knows she isn't really serious about the movie, but if it would make her happy, he'd go.

"What?s on?" He asks.

"Oh," she sighs. "Nothing really good I guess. Nothing you?d want to see."

She's probably right. But still, it bothers him that she makes this assumption. She stands and reaches to clear his plate. "Laura," he pleads. He takes her hand.

She looks at him and fills, unexpectedly, with affection. My dear, sweet husband, she thinks. She sighs, relaxes, and closes her eyes.

"Laura?"

She slips away for just an instant.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine," she says. She drops his hand, picks up the plate and heads into the kitchen. She stands at the sink, rinses the dishes. At her place near the sea she will grow herbs on the windowsill and sweep the cheap linoleum floor with a broom.