The kitchen light was still on. I walked in to take my medication and noticed that my ticket was gone. I assumed I had knocked it somewhere. I looked briefly, didn’t find it, decided it could wait until morning. It could not wait until morning, but I did not know that yet. 3 days later, on a Sunday, Derek and Cynthia came home from somewhere in the early afternoon.
I was in the garden pulling the last of the winter weeds before the real cold came back. I heard the car, heard the door, heard something in the quality of their voices that I could not name, but recognized the way you recognize a smell you haven’t encountered in years. Excited, controlled, careful. I came inside.
Cynthia was standing at the kitchen table looking at her phone. Derek was pacing the way he did when he couldn’t contain something. He looked at me and the look lasted one second too long. Good news, I asked. Just work stuff, he said, and smiled with his mouth. I nodded. I made dinner. But that evening, sitting at the table where Roland and I had eaten 10,000 meals, I felt for the first time something I can only describe as a cold alertness.
The feeling a person gets when the story they are being told does not quite match the story they are watching. I did not sleep well that night and then came Monday morning. I was still in my bathrobe when I heard the noise from the hallway. A dragging sound, then a bump, then Cynthia’s voice saying something sharp and low to Derek.
I opened my bedroom door. My suitcase, the large brown one Roland had bought for our trip to Portugal in 2004, was standing in the hallway, packed, closed. ‘What is this?’ I asked. Derek stood at the end of the hall. He looked at me for a moment with an expression I had never seen on his face before, or perhaps one I had seen and misread for something softer.
Then he said the words, ‘I will carry with me for the rest of my life.’ ‘Mom, we need the house. You should think about somewhere more appropriate for your situation. We can help you find a good place.’ ‘A good place?’ I repeated. You know, Cynthia said, appearing from the kitchen doorway, somewhere with support for seniors.