ANN LAY IMMOBILE on her left side, legs drawn up, hands clasped tightly underneath her chin. Her eyes stared sightlessly, still glistening with tears that no longer fell. She hadn't even stirred when I'd sat down on the other side of the bed and, if she sensed my gaze on her masklike face, she gave no indication of it.

Ginger slept, exhausted, at the foot of the bed. I turned to look at her and felt a rush of pitying love. She was so unquestioning in her devotion. If only there was some way she could understand what was happening.

I looked back at Ann. My body felt cold and aching and I knew that, as I sat there, that dark, terrible magnetism was waiting to draw me to the void where she existed. I had only to allow it and the atmosphere would totally absorb me, making me as she was, a prisoner forgetting everything that had gone before. I knew, with dreadful clarity, how foolish and misplaced my hopes had been. Albert had tried to warn me but I hadn't listened. Now I understood at last.

There was no way to reach Ann.

Still, words came. Words I wanted her to hear, now when I could speak them to her, face to face. Words which I knew could not affect her but words that filled my mind and heart.

"You remember how you used to write thank-you notes to people all the time?" I asked. "For dinners, presents, favors? I used to tease you because you wrote so many of them. But they were lovely gestures, Ann. I always knew that."

No sound from her. Completely inanimate on the bed. I reached out and took her right hand. It was cold and limp. I held it in both of mine and continued speaking.

"I want to give you thanks in words now," I told her. "I don't know what will happen to us. I pray we'll be together somewhere, sometime, but, at the moment, I have no idea if that's possible.

"That's why I'm going to thank you now for everything you've done for me, everything you've meant to me. Some-one you never met told me that thoughts are real and eternal. So, even if you don't understand my words now, I know the time will come when what I say will reach you."

I pressed her hand between my palms to warm it and I told her what I felt.

"Thank you, Ann, for all the things you did for me in life, from the smallest to the largest. Everything you did had meaning and I want you to know my gratitude for them.

"Thank you for keeping my clothes clean, our homes clean, yourself clean. For always being fresh and sweet smelling, always being well groomed.

"Thank you for feeding me. For the preparation of so many lovely meals. For baking for me at a time when so few women bother anymore.

"Thank you for worrying about me when I was having difficulties of any kind. For sympathizing with me when I was depressed.

"Thank you for your sense of humor. For making me laugh when I needed it. For making me laugh when I neither needed nor expected it but enjoyed the extra savor of it in my life. Thank you for your wry perception of our life together and the world we lived in.

"Thank you for caring for me when I was ill. For seeing to it, always, that bed and pajamas were clean, that I was well fed and had fresh juice or water to drink. That I had something to read or that the television set or radio was on or that the house was kept quiet so I could sleep. All this in addition to your other work.

"Thank you for sharing my love of music and for sharing your love of music with me. For the sharing of each other's love of beauty and nature.

"Thank you for helping us to find the lovely way of life we had. For the furnishing and decorating and enjoying of our different homes, the opening of them to the people we knew.

"Thank you for being affectionate with my friends and loving to my family. Thank you for helping us to build so many mutual friendships.

"Thank you for being someone I was proud to be with no matter where I was or who I saw.

"Thank you for our physical relationship. For sharing your female being with me. For making the bodily part of our life so satisfying and exciting. For keeping my sexual ego intact. For enjoying my body as much as I enjoyed yours. For the warmth of your flesh on cold nights and the warmth of your love always.

"Thank you for having faith in my work and in my ultimate success. I know it wasn't easy when there were children and bills and pressures of every kind. But you never wavered in your trust that I'd succeed and I thank you for that.

"Thank you for the memories of things we did together and with the children. Thank you for suggesting that we buy a camper for the family, for helping to bring the joys of outdoor living to me and the children. I know it will be part of their lives now as it was a part of ours. Thank you for all the lovely national parks we saw together. For Sequoia and Yosemite, Lassen and Shasta, Olympic and Mount Ranier, Glacier and Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Bryce. For Canada and all the states we camped through from coast to coast.

"Thank you for helping us to find, and for sharing with us, the pleasures of traveling to Hawaii and the South Seas, to Europe and throughout the United States. "Do you remember all our Christmases together, Ann? How we used to go out, all of us, in the camper, drive to the Y.M.C.A. lot in Reseda and pick out a tree? How we walked through aisles of bushy, pungent-smelling pine and spruce trees and chose one, laughing, voting and contending until we found one everybody liked? How we took it home and set it up and put the lights on, then the decorations and the tinsel? How we sat together, looking at it, the only sound our Christmas records playing? How we always said, each year, that that tree was the best we ever got and it was always true for us? I remember all those lovely moments and I thank you for them.

"Thank you for the memories of you and me alone together. Taking weekend trips or drives to interesting places. Shopping together. Walking. Sitting on the bench and looking at the hills at sunset. I'd put my arm around your shoulders and you'd lean against me and we'd watch the sun go down. That was contentment, Ann.

"Do you remember the sheep that used to graze on those hills? How we watched them, smiling at their constant baaing and the delicate clank of the bells around their necks? Do you remember the herds of cattle that were out there sometimes? Sweet recollections, Ann. I thank you for them.

"Thank you for the memories of watching you with birds. Watching you take care of them and heal them, give them your loving attention, year after year. Those birds are waiting for you, Ann. They love you.

"Thank you for giving me the example of your courage and tenacity in recovering from your nervous breakdown. It was a dreadful time in your life, in both our lives. The sleepless nights, the fears and uncertainties, the painful reliving of your past. The years of trying, struggling, hoping.

"Thank you for never letting those years make you surrender. For never letting the scars of your childhood make you give up your efforts to grow and strengthen yourself. And, even though I never wanted you to, thank you for doing all you could to keep me from being exposed to what you suffered during that time.

"Thank you for valuing your marriage and family so highly yet still expanding as an individual. For your desire to grow and your success at doing it.

"Do you remember going back to school? First, taking an isolated course or two, then, later, going at it more intensely until you'd earned your Associate of Arts degree, then your Bachelor's, then started working toward a profession as an adult counselor? I was so proud of you, Ann. I wish you were still doing it. You would have made a wonderful counselor--full of empathy and love. "Thank you for our children. Thank you for providing the clean and lovely vessel of your body for the creation of their physical lives. Do you know I still remember the exact moment each of them was born? Louise at 3:07 p.m. on January 22, 1951, Richard at 7:02 a.m. on October 14, 1953, Marie at 9:04 p.m. on July 5, 1956 and Ian at 8:07 a.m. on February 25, 1959. Thank you for the joy I felt at seeing each of them for the first time--and for the joys that each has brought to my life. Thank you for teaching me to be considerate of them and respect their separate identities. Thank you for being such a fine example to our daughters and sons, showing them what's possible in a wife and mother.

"Thank you for letting me be myself. For dealing with me as I was, not as you imagined me to be or wanted me to be. Thank you for being so compatible with my mind and my emotions. For helping me to keep my airy thoughts on earth, for being neither dominant nor passive but each as the occasion demanded. For being female and accepting what I had to offer as a male. For making me feel, always, like a man.

"Thank you for being tolerant of my failings. For neither crushing my ego nor allowing it to grow beyond the bounds of sense. For keeping, in my mind, the realization that I was a human being with responsibilities. Thank you for remaking me without ever doing it deliberately. For helping me to understand myself better. For helping me accomplish more with you than I could ever have accomplished alone.

"Thank you for encouraging me to talk about our problems, especially as the years went by. Our increasing ability to talk to each other made our marriage better and better. Thank you for helping me combine my ideas and feelings and communicate with you as a total being. Thank you for liking me as well as loving me, for being not only my wife and lover but my friend.

"Thank you for your imagination in our life. For helping me to grow in appreciation of new activities and new ideas. For making my tastes more adventuresome in all things from the least to the greatest.

"Thank you for reminding me in acts, not words, of the right things to do where others were concerned. For teaching me, by example, that sacrifice can be a positive and loving gesture. Thank you for the opportunity to mature.

"Thank you for your dependability. For always being there when I needed you. Thank you for your honesty, your values, your morality and compassion. Thank you even for the bad times between us because, in those as well, I learned to grow.

"I apologize for every time I failed you, every time I lacked the understanding you deserved. I apologize for not being patient and kind when I should have been. I apologize for all the times I was selfish and failed to see your needs. I always loved you, Ann, but, often, let you down. I apologize for all those times and thank you for making me feel stronger than I was, wiser than I was, more capable than I was. Thank you, Ann, for gracing my life with your lovely presence, for adding the sweet measure of your soul to my existence.

"I thank you, love, for everything."

She was looking at me now, with such a suffering expression that, for an instant, I regretted having spoken as I had.

Immediately, that vanished.

There was something in her eyes.

Vague and formless, struggling for existence. Like a candle flame in wind.

But definitely there.

How she tried. God in heaven, Robert, how she tried. I saw each moment of it on her face. Something in my words had ignited a tiny flame in her mind and now she strained to keep it burning. Not even knowing what had sparked it into life. Not even knowing it was lit but only sensing that it was. Aware of something. Something different. Something other than the wretchedness she'd been existing with.

I didn't know what to do.

Should I speak, attempting to nourish the flame? Or remain silent, giving her the time to nurture it herself? I didn't know. In that most urgent moment in our entire relationship, I was mentally adrift.

So I did nothing. Staring at her face. Her face so like a child's, striving to understand some vast, remote mystery.

Try, I thought.

It was the only word my mind could summon. Try. I think I nodded in encouragement. Try. I think I smiled. Try. I held her hand so tightly. Try. I felt us both begin to tremble. Try, Ann. Try. Every second of our long affinity--from the moment we'd met to this incredible instant--was in climax now. Try, Ann try. Try. Please try.

The flame went out.

I saw it die. One second it was there, barely alive. Then it was gone, the faint illumination of it vanished from her mind. And the falling off of her expression-- anxious hope to dull oblivion--was, to me, the most hideous sight I'd seen since my death.

"Ann!" I cried.

No response. In word or facial recognition.

The cause was lost.

I stared at her in silence, moments passing.

Until the one remaining answer came to me.

I couldn't leave her there alone.

Strange how the most horrific decision I had ever made in my existence should impart a sense of peace to me.

Instantly, I let the waiting magnetism start to envelop me.

There was no stopping it now. I felt an icy curdling in my flesh, a horrible, clotting, chilling condensation of my entire body.

I almost tried to fight it off as mindless terror swept across my mind.

I stopped that.

This was the one thing I could do for her.

I'd lose the knowledge of it soon; not even have the solace of recognizing my own gesture. But, now, for these limited moments, I knew exactly what I was doing. The only thing left to do.

Forswear heaven to be with her.

Show my love by choosing to remain beside her for the twenty-four years she had to remain there.

I prayed that my companionship--whatever it might prove to be when I had lost awareness--might ease, in some small way, her pain at living in this awful place.

But stay I would, no matter what.

I started, looking around.

Ginger was licking my other hand.

As I stared at her, incredulous, I heard what was, to me, the most beautiful sound in the universe.

Ann's voice speaking my name.

I turned to her in wonder. There were tears in her eyes.

"Is it really you?" she murmured.

"Yes, Ann. Really." I saw her through a shimmering haze of tears.

"You did this ... for me?"

I nodded. "Yes, Ann, yes. Yes." Already, I could feel awareness fading. How soon would it be gone? How soon would desolation triumph?

It didn't matter.

For those few seconds, we were reunited.

I drew her up and put my arms around her, felt her arms around me. We wept in each other's embrace.

Suddenly, she pulled back, her expression one of dread. "Now you can't leave,'' she said.

"It doesn't matter." I laughed and cried at once. "It doesn't matter, Ann. Heaven would never be heaven without you."

And, just before the darkness crept across my consciousness, I spoke, for the last time to my wife, my life, my precious Ann. My last words, whispered to her. "Let this hell be our heaven."