Love is a simple word spoken daily; in fact, spoken thousands of times a day. It's a word said so often and so casually that it risks losing any real meaning. As the reader is drawn into the complexity of each character's points of view, their own views and opinions are considered. The big differences between the friends, their experiences in love and life, are things that the reader can easily relate to in one way or another. The idea that the meaning of love is so easily lost can be seen in Mel's cynical view of love. love. Mel being a college-educated man with a strong spiritual orientation, he clearly didn't let either education or spirituality influence his view of love. His inability to contemplate the idea that the violence shown by Terri's first lover, Ed, could reflect love, no matter how perverse. When presented with her views on love, her thoughts went straight to a former lover, Ed. Although she is currently in a healthy romantic relationship with Mel, thoughts about Ed came to her mind. spirit. His response to Mel's disgust at the mere mention of his name, as if the man was an ugly scum not even worthy of love "of course, that's abnormal in most people's eyes." But he was ready to die for it. He died for this. (303). But for most people, that's not love. It is property and possessive passion. As sick as the relationship was and as angry as a man appeared, Terri didn't even want to leave him on his deathbed. Almost as if she owed him something. For Terri, Ed loved her, even after she told others, "He beat me one night, he kept saying, I love you, I love you, I love you, bitch." (303) For Terri, it was love. Yes, although in its entirety it was a very different love than the one shown to him by M...... middle of paper ...... m protection, the casts of the body from head to toe still covered both husband and wife. As the old couple lay bandaged in their room, so did the man, wrapped from head to toe in a cast to repair his broken body, with only holes in the important places. Placing the cast on the couple to heal them and protect them from further damage ironically caused the old man a lot of pain. The cast caused neither of them any physical pain, but prevented him from seeing his wife. For him, it was the most painful thing he could imagine happening to him, and he wanted nothing more than to be able to look across the room and see that his wife was physically there with him. Mel was stunned: "I'm telling you that man's heart was breaking because he couldn't turn his damn head and see his damn wife..” (309)