By the fifth, I forgot to think of her death as an event that would benefit me.
Then one morning, Evelyn collapsed in the kitchen.
I was in the garage sanding a walnut tabletop when I heard the sound.
Not loud.
Just wrong.
A cup breaking.
A chair scraping.
Then silence.
I ran inside and found her on the floor beside the sink, one hand twisted in her cardigan, eyes half open.
“Evelyn?”
My voice cracked.
She tried to speak but could not.
I called 911 with hands that would not stop shaking. I rode in the ambulance even though the paramedic told me I might be more useful following in my truck. I sat beside her hospital bed while doctors said words like stroke and bleeding and critical.
Caroline arrived that night.
She looked at me with hatred so old it had become part of her face.
“If she dies,” she whispered in the hallway, “I hope you choke on whatever you get.”
