David said he’d take the whole day off from his accounting office. “Mom, I’ll be right there. First face you see.”
Sarah said she’d bring flowers. Yellow roses, my favorite. “I’ll make the room pretty for you.”
Michael said he’d come straight after his morning sales calls. “Wouldn’t miss it, Ma.”
And they had walked away over thirty-two dollars.
I turned my face toward the window.
I didn’t want her to see. But the tears came before I could stop them. They ran sideways across my face and into my ear and soaked into the pillow.
The heart monitor beside me began beeping faster. Beep, beep, beep, beep.
“Mrs. Davis,” Kayla said, grabbing a tissue box off the counter. “Please. Try not to upset yourself. Your heart needs to rest.”
That only made it worse.
I was sixty-four years old. I had raised three children mostly by myself after my husband, Frank, died. I had worked thirty-one years as a school secretary in the Seattle Public Schools. I’d paid for braces and college applications and car repairs and one wedding.
