Then she fell outside one winter.
Then she forgot a pot on the stove.
Ethan and I began visiting more often.
Eventually, after another fall, we had the conversation.
“You could stay with us for a few weeks,” Ethan said.
Margaret glared at him.
“I have a house.”
“You have a staircase you can barely climb.”
“I’ve climbed it for forty years.”
“And now you don’t have to.”
She looked at me.
I stayed quiet.
Finally she asked:
“You agree with him?”
“I think you should come until you’re stronger.”
“I’m not getting stronger.”
The bluntness of that surprised me.
I sat beside her.
“Then come until we figure out something better.”
Margaret studied me for several seconds.
“You always talk like a lawyer.”
“I’m a bookkeeper.”
“Same disease.”
She came for three weeks.
She stayed twelve years.
