“I’m sorry, what were you asking about?”

“You remember the woman with the smile?”

“Yes. I’ll never forget that smile. She smiled at me and…”

“No, no. I need to know her name, Mr. Keegan.”

“Well it wasn’t Mrs. Keegan, I know that much. I wanted it to be, though. She had a smile on her. She smiled at me and…”

“Yes, I know the rest, excuse me Mr. Keegan. Stay right here. I’m just going to step out and get a nurse. I’ll be back in a minute.”

The doctor went out the door, and as it closed behind him, I could see he was headed down the hallway. My memory has been slipping on me for the past few days…I think. I do remember some things. There’s the smile, the most radiant smile you’ve ever seen. I could get lost in that smile for days, but I won’t.

I went to the cabin. I know that much. She didn’t. Instead, I got a phone call at six in the morning the day I was supposed to pick her up to go out to the cabin. I knew what she was going to say even before I picked up the phone. She was feeling under the weather and could I go on my own and tear down the cabin. As she said the words, I knew she was smiling and, of course, I said yes. What else could I have said? “No, I’m not man enough to do this alone. I need your help.” Besides, I was sure she was smiling, and I was not the man to resist that.

I remember being on the road that Saturday – I think it was last Saturday – alone. Not only was there no one in the passenger seat, there was no one else on the roads the full one hundred miles to the turnoff that led to the cabin. I remember that the way to the cabin quickly turned into a dirt road, which quickly became overgrown and narrow, and a minute or two after leaving the highway, my brand new SUV was scratched by branches on either side and dirt was kicking up each time I drove into a hole. I remember being angry at that and driving faster to get it over with. This made things worse.

Anyway, I remember finding the cabin. It was like she said. There was a huge hole in the roof and part of a wall had already come down. When I went in, there was an inch of dust on everything and a giant boulder sitting in the middle of the room, broken planks that used to be the flooring sticking every which way out from under it.

The place was a bit bigger than I had thought it would be, but the main structural feature was a stone fireplace and between the planks levering it up and the timbers falling down from the roof on top of it, that was ready to give way. Piece of cake. I couldn’t figure out how a contractor could dare to charge anything for knocking the place down. It wouldn’t take me and my SUV more than a day.

Before demolishing anything, I took a look at the meteor. It looked like a rock. Nothing special. It didn’t glow, or hum, or speak to me. It wasn’t warm. I tried to move it, but it was as big as a sofa and it wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t think the SUV was going to have any luck, but then the smiling lady had told me, and this I remember, that I didn’t have to move anything, I just had to tear the house down and that was it. I took one of my gloves off and touched the rock. I guess I was thinking about how it had traveled millions of miles and maybe millions of years, and here it was where I could touch it. Serendipity.

I lassoed the chimney, tied it to the tow-knob of my SUV, put it in reverse and brought the whole thing down along with most of what was left of the roof and most of the wall it was attached to. The dust cloud that raised was enormous and hung in the air for about five minutes, but I sat in my vehicle with the windows up.

I pulled down another wall the same way. Two walls, the fireplace, and most of the roof took me less than an hour. The other two walls and the bit of roof that was left didn’t want to budge. They were locked in together snug. It was time for me to get out the sledgehammer I had brought with me. For the next hour or more I pounded on the walls at strategic spots. Then I roped them to the SUV and reversed. It did no good.

The bits of roof that remained held the walls together, so up I went. I climbed on top with the hammer and smashed away for fifteen minutes – I remember checking my watch. Then I heard the walls begin to creak and the part of the roof I was standing on became wobbly and I could tell I had a second or two to get off before I came down with the roof and walls and everything. That’s when – the man in the white lab coat (a doctor I think) is back. There’s a woman in white with him, but she’s not smiling.

“Mr. Keegan. We’ve spoken to Mary, Mary Henderson. That’s her name. Anyway, she told us all about what happened. If it’s any comfort to you, Mr. Keegan, she’s sorry she didn’t call you, and she’s sorry you got sick. She hopes you’re feeling better soon.”