That year Gloria had come up our porch steps in a walking boot and taken it off at the door.

She patted her chest and told me the stairs in our house were murder on her hip.

At dinner she asked Trent to do the carving, since carving was hard on her hip.

Then she asked me to send Monday’s payment early, because the clinic wanted a deposit on the physical therapy package.

I sent it that same afternoon and told her to look after herself.

Six days later, a tuition draft for forty-one hundred dollars cleared out of that same credit union account, paid to a school in Tempe.