Martin has to figure out how to bring Mary back. He can't live in a world without Mary. Why would he even get out of bed in the morning?

The only thing he's got to work with is the power of words. He's been working with words since he was seven years old. That was when he wrote his first story about Skip. After his mother read it, she taped it to the refrigerator door and brought his father over to read it the second he walked through the front door after work that night. It was a good story about a German Shepard dog that learned to fly one night when the meteors were streaking across the sky and everyone was out in their backyards watching. Martin was the one who created those streaks of fire in the sky, and he made the dog fly, and he put the neighbors out in their yards. He did it all with words. When he saw how astonished his mother was by his story, he realized he'd made her believe in flying dogs by taking her on a magic carpet ride of words. He wanted to do that again, so he became a writer.

After writing stories for more than sixty years, he's learned a lot about the power of words, and right now, he needs that kind of power. It's the only way he's ever going to bring Mary back. "Write the words of her being downstairs in the kitchen," he tells himself. "Do it. Do it right now." He sits down and writes the words, then he puts himself in the story at the top of the stairs, listening. Yes. He can hear the cupboard doors squeaking as she swings them back and forth as she tries to remember what she's looking for.

Right when he expects it, she calls out, "Martin. Could you come down here for a minute?"

He thinks about doing it, but then, no. He's not ready to go down yet. What if she's not fully there? What if he spoils the whole thing and has to start the story all over?

He stays at the top of the stairs and listens.

It's quiet for some time. Then suddenly, Mary starts slamming the cupboard doors. He's always known she does that when she's angry at him, but why is she angry? Is it something he did? Or is it something about who he is as a person? Why doesn't he know the answer to that question? After thinking about it for a minute, Martin's not so sure he wants to know the answer? What if he can't handle it? If she sees him in a different way than he sees himself, he might get lost. Then he'd be lost and alone.

Then it hits him. Understanding her the key to everything. He can only bring Mary back if he puts her into her own skin and reconstructs the story of her life the way she would write it.

But what if he never truly understood Mary? What if he can't see clearly from her point of view? What if he didn't listen close enough all those years when he thought he was listening? What if he didn't see what he should have seen?

The sad realization that it could be true, brings Martin back to the room where Mary's body is lying lifeless on the bed. Three days she's been lying there dead. It's because he knows that once they take her body away, she'll be gone forever. There will be no way he can ever bring her back.

He gets an idea and hurries to the lamp table on her side of the bed to retrieve her journal from the drawer. He starts to read the entries out loud, then thinks, no, I've got write them into the story.

After flipping through the pages, he finds an entry he thinks might work.

I don't want to wake Martin, but I can't sleep. I guess I'll write. The morning light is just beginning to make its way through the blinds. Stripes of light, turning pink. Martin snorts once, then returns to his soft rhythmic breathing. He's like my father in some ways. Like my father was with my mother. Maybe the way all men are with their wives. Needing them. It's a powerful need. A need a woman can't help but respond to. Still . . .

Martin wonders what still means, but the entry stops there. That single word worries him. What if that's the point at which he can't go any further. That point of not understanding.

He keeps repeating the word, "still . . . still . . . still. Still what?" What does she mean, he's like her father?

He hears a whoosh of wings pushing through air, and he knows they've arrived. Those hideous vultures with their red beaks dripping blood. Those beasts of death that are always popping up in his stories. He strikes them down, time and again, but now, here they are again trying to destroy his optimism about saving Mary.

"Don't listen to them, "he yells. "Don't let yourself go down that disappearing road where no words can reach you. Just listen to Mary. Listen to what she's doing down in the kitchen right now?"

He listens, but it seems like a thick shroud of silence has fallen over the whole house. He starts scribbling furiously across the page, hoping something will materialize, but even as he writes he can see it's all nonsense. Straight gibberish. Not a single real word anywhere.

The truth is, he doesn't know Mary, so how's he going to write a world that she can live in.

Suddenly, he hears something downstairs. It's what he's been listening for the whole time; that soft swish swish of Mary's slippers as she moves across the Mexican tile floor from the bathroom to the kitchen. He hears water running, followed by the beep of the microwave oven a few minutes later. Yes. Mary is down there. She's heated up her cup of coffee in the microwave, and now she's turned the electric cooker on. Good. She's making him a hot cup of water for his tea. She must know he's coming.

He races down the stairs to the kitchen and wraps his arms around her. "Mary. You're here."

Sure, I'm here? Where else would I be, darlin'?

"I thought you were gone, Mary. I thought you were gone forever."