I noticed that Derek had stopped asking whether I needed anything at the grocery store and had started coming home with bags full of things neither he nor Cynthia would share. I noticed that they whispered in the kitchen in a way that stopped when I entered. small things, the kind of things a reasonable person tells herself she is imagining.
And then there was the lottery ticket. Every week for the past 11 years, I had played the same numbers in the Ohio Lottery, Roland’s birthday, my birthday, the year we got married. It was a ritual more than a strategy. I held no real belief that I would win, but it connected me to something, to him, to the life we had built together.
I bought my ticket every Thursday at Garfield’s pharmacy on the corner of Fifth and Maple. Mrs. Garfield knew my order. Two scratchoffs and one multi-draw ticket. Same numbers, same day, same smile across the counter. The Thursday in question was the 6th of March. I remember the date because it was the anniversary of the day Roland proposed to me, which is why I had chosen to use his birthday in the first sequence.
I bought my ticket at Garfields as always, came home, set it on the kitchen counter next to my reading glasses, made myself a cup of chamomile tea, and sat down to watch the evening news. I fell asleep in the chair before the lottery numbers were announced. That happened sometimes. When I woke, it was past 10.
The kitchen light was still on. I walked in to take my medication and noticed that my ticket was gone. I assumed I had knocked it somewhere. I looked briefly, didn’t find it, decided it could wait until morning. It could not wait until morning, but I did not know that yet. 3 days later, on a Sunday, Derek and Cynthia came home from somewhere in the early afternoon.
I was in the garden pulling the last of the winter weeds before the real cold came back. I heard the car, heard the door, heard something in the quality of their voices that I could not name, but recognized the way you recognize a smell you haven’t encountered in years. Excited, controlled, careful. I came inside.
Cynthia was standing at the kitchen table looking at her phone. Derek was pacing the way he did when he couldn’t contain something. He looked at me and the look lasted one second too long. Good news, I asked. Just work stuff, he said, and smiled with his mouth. I nodded. I made dinner. But that evening, sitting at the table where Roland and I had eaten 10,000 meals, I felt for the first time something I can only describe as a cold alertness.
The feeling a person gets when the story they are being told does not quite match the story they are watching. I did not sleep well that night and then came Monday morning. I was still in my bathrobe when I heard the noise from the hallway. A dragging sound, then a bump, then Cynthia’s voice saying something sharp and low to Derek.
I opened my bedroom door. My suitcase, the large brown one Roland had bought for our trip to Portugal in 2004, was standing in the hallway, packed, closed. ‘What is this?’ I asked. Derek stood at the end of the hall. He looked at me for a moment with an expression I had never seen on his face before, or perhaps one I had seen and misread for something softer.
Then he said the words, ‘I will carry with me for the rest of my life.’ ‘Mom, we need the house. You should think about somewhere more appropriate for your situation. We can help you find a good place.’ ‘A good place?’ I repeated. You know, Cynthia said, appearing from the kitchen doorway, somewhere with support for seniors.
