Claire inhaled.
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
Daniel said, “Mama, maybe you should sit.”
Margaret turned on him.
“I am not an invalid.”
His face fell.
She regretted the sharpness.
But not enough to apologize yet.
“I’ll get it.”
She walked out of the kitchen.
The stairs had become harder over the last year.
Daniel had noticed.
Claire had noticed.
That was how the nursing-home conversation had begun in the first place.
A fall in October.
A burned saucepan in November when Margaret forgot she had turned on the burner and went outside to collect the mail.
Then a week earlier, Daniel found an unpaid electric bill under a stack of magazines.
Not because Margaret could not pay it.
Because she had forgotten.
Claire had begun saying they needed “a plan.”
Margaret had heard “removal.”
Then that morning, while making breakfast, she had left the refrigerator door open.
Claire snapped.
Margaret snapped back.
The argument grew.
And Daniel said the words.
Maybe the nursing home.
Now Margaret climbed the stairs one at a time.
She knew Daniel was following.
“I can do it.”
“I know.”
“Then stop hovering.”
“I’m not hovering.”
“You are breathing on my neck.”
He backed down one step.
Margaret continued.
At the top, she entered the spare bedroom.
A cedar chest sat beneath the window.
She opened it.
