I retired at 70 after nearly four decades at the clinic, picked up a little bakery cake with blue frosting roses, and drove home grinning like a fool. I imagined my son Thomas, his wife Delia, and the grandkids singing off-key while I pretended to blow out invisible candles.
Instead, my suitcases were lined up on the porch like stray dogs.
The locks had been changed. A sticky note was slapped to the top case in Delia’s neat little script: You’ve moved to a senior facility by choice. Don’t make a scene. If you want to see the kids again, keep quiet.
My hands shook so hard the cake slid in its box. For a full minute I stood there listening to the house I paid off breathe without me.
Then I crossed the street to Bonnie’s.
Bonnie, my best friend for 40 years, opened the door before I knocked. She took one look at my face, parked me at her kitchen table, poured tea, and said, “We’re going to fix this.”
From her front window you can see my place plain as a postcard. We were still on our first cups when our gardener, Gary, pulled up—midweek, which he never does. Moments later Delia opened my front door in a dress that screamed not-for-grocery-shopping and let him in like he was expected.
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