The cremation was scheduled for eight o’clock the following morning.

That is a fact and it is in a file and I am going to state it exactly once in this account and then leave it alone, because I have been asked to describe what it feels like to know that number and I am not going to, and anybody who has a child does not need me to.

Part Three: Forty-Eight Hours Earlier

Fernando called me on the Sunday at 6:40 in the morning.