I would have grown confused, and then more confused, and then one morning I would not have woken, and a grieving young widow would have wept at my funeral, and no one — not my children, not my doctor, not the law — would have thought to ask a single question.

She had it all worked out.

She had failed to account for a housekeeper’s loyalty and a jammed drawer.

Chapter 12 — Not Age

The cold of it went through me, slow at first and then all at once.

The bouts of confusion I had blamed on my years.