My daughter, Ruth, stayed with me during the day.
David brought groceries and collected prescriptions.
Michael visited every evening, often arriving with food I had not requested and advice I had not asked for.
One afternoon, I found him rearranging the furniture in my sitting room.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“Making the place safer while you recover.”
“My sitting room has been arranged this way for twenty years.”
“And now it has a clear walking path.”
“It looks like a hospital corridor.”
He grinned.
“Then you should feel right at home.”
I threw a cushion at him.
He caught it, laughing.
But after he left, I sat quietly in my chair and thought about how close I had come to losing the life I had taken for granted.
I also thought about the letter.
For the first time since Samuel’s death, I was angry with him.
Not the sharp anger of someone who has been betrayed by a stranger, but the complicated anger of someone who realizes that love did not prevent a person from making a terrible mistake.
