There’s not even anyone waiting for me, in death. Or, how do I know? Perhaps there is. Perhaps one among the many lovely, loving women of the seventies remembers me fondly on the other side. Perhaps she never forgot me and has been waiting ever since. Or perhaps the afterlife embraces the aspects of ourselves that love in all their facets, and that part of Michael’s mother that did love me is grown into a whole self, and taps her feet impatiently on the step of the wondrous heavenly city.