LITMIR.BIZ

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perhaps Sarah would have felt sorrow rather than anger. Any other word, and perhaps she could have responded rationally. But “shit”?

      “Shit? His ‘shit’? No, Sandy, it’s not his ‘shit.’ Those are his clothes, the clothes and possessions of a man I loved. Do what you want with your old things. But those are mine, and I am not throwing them away. When the time comes for me to part with them, I’ll know it. And then they will go somewhere where they can do someone some good. Not to the dump.”

      Sandy squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “Can’t put this off any longer, Mom. You know it’s why I came. I’ve only got this weekend to get all this stuff cleared out. I know it’s hard, but you have to let us do it. We don’t have time for you to be picky about it.”

      Sarah couldn’t breathe. Had she agreed to this? When Alex had been there, talking and nagging, she had said, “Yes, yes,” but that didn’t mean she’d agreed to this, this destruction of her life. No. Not this fast, not like this! “No. No, Sandy.” She spoke as firmly as if Sandy were still a teenager. “You are going to take all my things back upstairs. Do you hear me? This stops now!”

      The friend spoke in a low voice. “Your brother warned you about this. Now you’ve upset her.” She dropped her cigarette and ground it out on the porch step. She left the butt there. “Maybe you should call your bro. She looks really confused.”

      Sarah spun to confront the friend. “I’m standing here!” she shouted. “And you and your stinking cigarettes can get out of my house right now. I am not ‘confused’; I am furious! Sandy, you should be ashamed of yourself, going through other people’s things. You were taught better. What is the matter with you?”

      Sandy’s face went white, then scarlet. Anger flashed across it, to be caged by dignity. “Mom. I hate to see you like this. I have to be honest. Your mind is slipping. Alex has been updating me. He told me he’d talked to you about this, and that you’d looked at the brochures together and chosen a couple of places you’d like. Don’t you remember at all?”

      “We talked. That was all. Nothing was decided! Nothing.”

      Sandy shook her head sadly. “That’s not what Alex said. He said you’d agreed, but he was taking it slow. But since that last incident, we have to act right away. Do you remember how he found you? Crouching under your table with the door open in a snowstorm?”

      The friend was shaking her head, pityingly. Sarah was horrified. Alex had told Sandy, and Sandy had spread it to her friends. “That is none of your business,” she said stiffly.

      Sandy threw up her hands and rolled her eyes. “Really, Mom? Really? Do you think we can just walk off and say, ‘Not my problem’? Because we can’t. We love you. We want to do what is right. Alex has been talking to several very nice senior communities with lovely amenities. He’s got it all figured out. If we use your social security and Dad’s pension, Alex and I can probably scrape together enough extra to get you into a nice place until the house sells. After that—”

      “No.” Sarah said it flatly. She stared at Sandy, appalled. Who was this woman? How could she think she could just walk in and begin making decisions about Sarah’s life? “Get out,” she said.

      Sandy glanced at her friend, who hadn’t budged. She was watching both of them, her mouth slightly ajar, like a Jerry Springer spectator. Sandy spoke to her apologetically. “You’d better go for now, Heidi. I need to calm my mom down. Why don’t you take the car and—”

      “You, Sandy. I’m talking to you. Get. Out.”

      Sandy’s face went slack with shock. Her eyes came back to life first, and for a moment she looked eleven and Sarah would have done anything to take back her words. Then her friend spoke knowingly. “I told you that you should have called your bro.”

      Sandy huffed a breath. “You were right. We should have gotten the guardianship done and moved her out first. You were right.”

      Cold rushed through Sarah’s body. “You just try it, missy. You just try it!”

      Tears were leaking from Sandy’s eyes now. The friend rushed to put a protective arm around her. “Come on, Sandy, let’s go. We’ll get some coffee and call your bro.”

      Even after the door had slammed behind them, and she had rushed over to lock it, Sarah couldn’t calm down. She paced. Her hands trembled as she put on the kettle for tea. She climbed the stairs and looked at the chaos they had created.

      In the kids’ bedrooms, there were boxes neatly taped shut and labeled with their names. And across the hall, in the bedroom she and Russ had once shared, there were more boxes and half-filled garbage sacks. With a lurch of her heart, she recognized her old hiking jacket poking out of one. She pulled it out slowly and looked at it. It was still fine; there was nothing wrong with it. She put it on and zipped it. Tighter around her middle than it had been, but it still fit. It was still hers, not theirs. Her gaze traveled slowly from the sprawled bags to neatly stacked FedEx cardboard boxes. Each was labeled either “Sandy” or “Alex,” but one was labeled “Heidi.” Sarah tore the tape from it and dumped it out on the bed. Russ’s ski parka. Two of his heavy leather belts. His Meerschaum pipe. His silver Zippo lighter. His tobacco humidor. She picked up the little wooden barrel and opened it. The aroma of Old Hickory tobacco drifted out to her and tears stung her eyes.

      Anger suddenly fired her. She dumped out all the boxes and bags on the floor. Alex’s box held Russ’s sheath knife from his hunting days. Some wool winter socks, still with the labels on. The little .22 and its ammunition were in one of Sandy’s boxes, along with Russ’s 35mm camera, in its case. The extra lenses and the little tripod was in there, too. His Texas Instruments calculator, the first one he’d ever owned and so expensive when she got it for his Christmas gift. A couple of his ties, and his old Timex watch. She sank down to the floor, holding the watch in her hand. She lifted it to her ear, shook it, and listened again. Silence. As still as his heart. She got to her feet slowly, looked around the ransacked room, and then left it, closing the door softly behind her. She’d clean it up later. Put it all back where it belonged.

      Halfway down the stairs, she knew that she wouldn’t. There was no sense to it. Sandy had been right about that, at least. What did all the trappings mean if there was no man to go with them?

      The kettle was whistling, and when she picked it up, it was almost dry. The phone began to ring. She wanted to ignore it. Caller ID said it was Alex. She spoke before he could. “They were ransacking the house. Putting all your father’s things into sacks to take to the dump. If that’s how you’re going to help me, how you’re going to ‘keep me safe,’ then I’d rather be …” Abruptly she could think of nothing to say. She hung up the phone.

      It rang again, and she let it, counting the rings until her answering machine picked up. She listened to Russ’s voice answering the phone and waited for Alex’s angry shout. Instead, an apologetic voice said that they hated to leave this sort of message on the phone but they had been trying to reach her all day without success. Richard had died that morning. They’d notified the funeral home listed on his Purple Cross card and his body had been picked up. His personal possessions had been boxed for her and could be claimed at the front desk. The voice offered his deepest condolences.

      She stood frozen, unable to move toward the phone. Silence flowed in after that call. When the phone rang again, she took the receiver off the hook, opened the back, and jerked out the batteries. The box on the wall kept ringing. She tugged it off the wall mount and unplugged it. Silence came back, filling her ears with a different sort of ringing. What to do, what to do? One or both of her children would be on the way back by now. Richard was dead. His body was gone, all his possessions taped up in a box. Russ was gone. She had no allies left, no one who remembered who she had been. The people who loved her most were the ones who presented the gravest danger to her. They were coming. She was nearly out of time. Out of time.

      She made a mug of black tea and carried it outside with her. The rain had stopped and the night was chill. Abruptly she was glad of the coat she wore. She watched the mist form; it wove itself among the wet tree branches and then detached to drop and mingle with

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