No How are you holding up?
No Did you sleep?
No Thank you.
Just the will.
I stared at my phone in the quiet kitchen where I’d spoon-fed her oatmeal, measured her pills, and learned to recognize the difference between a “bad day” and a “we need an ambulance” day by the color of her lips.
Outside, the Ohio sky was the same flat gray it had been for months. Inside, the house still smelled like her lotion and the peppermint tea she couldn’t really taste anymore but asked for anyway because it made her feel like herself.
I didn’t answer him right away.
I couldn’t.
Because the truth is, when you’re the one who stayed, grief doesn’t come like a movie scene. It comes like a to-do list.
Call the hospice nurse back.
Return the oxygen equipment.
Fold the last load of laundry that somehow still smells like the person who’s gone.
Find the sweater she wore on her last “good day” and press it to your face like it might explain why the world keeps moving.
And then, apparently, discuss the assets.
My sister arrived two hours later with a car full of things she called “help.” Paper plates. A plastic tablecloth. A tray of cookies from a grocery store bakery.
