Amanda stood in my living room with a notary and a leather folder, her smile as cold as December frost. The notary kept shuffling papers like he was dealing cards at my funeral. I folded my hands, met her eyes, and said, “Perfect timing.
But before we do anything, let’s make a quick stop at the police station. They’ve been expecting me.”
Color drained from her face faster than water down a broken drain. For a heartbeat, the house was so quiet I could hear the clock on the mantel counting out the seconds between us.
Two days earlier I had watched my only son, Michael, marry this woman in the same church where I’d married his father thirty-five years ago. The sanctuary smelled of lilies and beeswax, the kind of smell that makes you believe good things can still happen in this world. I wanted to believe it.
I wanted to believe in her. Amanda looked radiant, and for the briefest moment I thought we might be able to build something like a relationship. She was carrying my future grandchild.
Maybe starting over was the one luxury age could still afford me. How naïve can one woman be. The reception was at the country club, the one where I used to work double shifts to help Michael through college.
They’d strung lights along the veranda and hired a jazz trio that looked too young to have ever heard real vinyl. I’d scraped together fifteen thousand dollars for the wedding—money I’d saved from my Social Security checks by eating generic cereal and walking to the grocery store to save on gas. I didn’t tell anyone how long it took to squirrel that money away.
I just wanted my son to have a beautiful start. “Amanda announced to a table of her friends,” as if she were introducing a charity donor at a fundraiser, “Dorothy has been such a help. She’s been living with us for months, helping with the down payment on our house.
Such a generous mother-in-law.”
Smiles went around the table like polite napkins. I caught the quick glances—the kind of pitying look people give a person they’ve decided is past the point of steering her own ship. Poor old woman probably can’t manage alone anymore.
What Amanda never mentioned was the way that help came to be. Three months earlier she’d convinced Michael that my little apartment wasn’t safe for an elderly woman living alone. “What if you fall?” she said, eyes bright with dutiful tears.
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