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2001-08-07 | 1:13 p.m.

When I least expect it, Duff brings up a box from the basement. A box of mine, from storage, and I am expected to shift focus to the box. Everything in the box must be thrown out or combined with like objects.

It is unreasonable of me to have so much junk, I admit. But it is just as unreasonable for Duff to dictate to me when I will go through it. Some people would find nothing wrong with that. They might point out that he has waited patiently for a long time, and I have not gotten this done on my own. Other people, who think like me, would know that it is very wrong of him. He simply doesn't understand---it doesn't occur to him---what it means to me to Go Back There. I have walled up whole years of my life. I know they're there. I have the facts collected in my mind. To be thrown back in the thick of it, in medias res, knowing what is coming all the time, well, that is a little too much.

Listen to me, I sound so dramatic. It's not as if anything truly bad ever happened to me.

I find old love letters that begin: Dear Darling Eddie.

I find an old day planner from 1990. I open to a random page.

Idea: To help jog my memory and cut down on note-passing at the trial, make a list of questions I would ask of each potential witness.

I find the hyphenated names of children I never had with Brian.

In the back of the day planner, I find four or five phone numbers. One is the number for the dean of Humboldt State University. Why, I wonder, did I ever need to call the dean of Humboldt State?

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