She pulled her purse into her lap and snapped it closed with the loud click that meant a conversation was finished.

On the TV a man was selling a knife that could cut through a tin can and then through a whole stack of tin cans.

She closed her eyes to hear better, the way she always did, and said she was just resting them.

She was saying something about the Christmas club checks, the ones that always came late, and then she wasn’t saying anything at all.

“Mama.” I said it the way I’d have called to her from the kitchen.

Then I said it again, getting to my feet, with the straw still between my fingers.

She didn’t wake up.

Her hand stayed curled on the arm of the chair, her purse stayed in her lap, and I stood there holding a straw I had no reason on earth to be holding.

I called 911 on the cordless phone with my shoulder jammed against my ear.

The operator asked me three questions before I could remember the name of our own street.

The ambulance got there in twelve minutes, which the older paramedic said was quick for this side of town.

They did everything anybody can do in a living room.

The younger one kept calling me Miss Ona in a voice like he’d known me my whole life.

“Her medications?” he asked.