After a family dinner, while I was cleaning up in the kitchen, my daughter-in-law leaned close and whispered, “You old witch, I only tolerate you because of my husband.” I laughed it off and replied, “Don’t worry, you won’t be seeing me anymore.” The very next day, I had the locks on the house changed and… – Reading Times

I had learned to live with it just as I had learned to live with so many other changes. I sat on the edge of my bed in my room and looked out at the highway, which was a faint ribbon already dotted with the first commuters heading toward Sacramento.

For thirty two years, George’s car had been among them every single morning. Then he was gone, and everything changed.

I slipped on my robe and quietly left the room. This apartment, nearly thirteen hundred square feet, had once been a canvas for George and me.

We bought it back in the eighties when California was not yet impossibly expensive. We added a second floor and built a patio while weaving so many plans into these walls.

Now it had become a battlefield, and I, Adelaide, felt like the losing side. The kitchen was spotless because of a habit ingrained from my decades as an emergency room nurse.

Order was paramount when chaos swirled around you. I put the kettle on and reached for my one small indulgence, which was a box of delicate Earl Grey tea from a little shop near my old workplace.