“And what am I?”
Her face twisted.
“A burden.”
The word should have hurt more. Perhaps it would have, if I had not heard her imply it for years.
I nodded slowly.
“I see.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” She stepped closer. “You walk around like everyone owes you sympathy because Margaret died. Well, everyone loses people. That doesn’t give you the right to become useless.”
My wife’s name in her mouth was the first true spark of anger.
“Careful,” I said.
Lucy laughed once.
“Or what?”
I stood.
Not quickly. Not aggressively. Just stood.
She was younger, taller in her heels, full of the cruel confidence people have when they believe age has made someone harmless.
“Or you’ll remember you’re speaking about a woman who treated you with more kindness than you ever deserved.”
Her hand came up before I finished the sentence.
The slap cracked across the small kitchen.
For a second, there was only sound. Sharp. Flat. Final.
My glasses shifted on my face. My hip struck the counter. Pain bloomed hot across my cheek, then spread toward my ear. I tasted blood where my teeth had cut the inside of my mouth.
Lucy froze.
Not with remorse.
With calculation.
She was deciding whether she had gone too far.
Then pride rescued her from fear.
“Go get a job,” she said, voice low and shaking. “Stop being such a pathetic old parasite and contribute something for once in your worthless life.”
She turned and walked out.
She left the door open.
I stood in the kitchen for a long time, one hand on the counter, rain ticking against the window, blood on my tongue.
Then I laughed.
Not loudly. Not happily.
But I laughed because Margaret had been right. Because the test was over. Because I had waited six months for a sign of decency and received, instead, a handprint.
I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.
The left side of my face was already red. The shape of her fingers rose across my cheek like evidence delivered by God himself. My glasses sat crooked. I straightened them, leaned closer, and studied the old man staring back at me.
Grieving.
Tired.
Underestimated.
But not weak.
I took out my phone and photographed my face from three angles. Then I drove myself to urgent care, where a young doctor with tired eyes examined the swelling and asked, gently, “Do you feel safe at home?”
I almost answered honestly.
Instead, I said, “Not for much longer.”
After the clinic, I sat in my car in the parking lot while rain ran down the windshield and texted James Morrison.
We need to accelerate the timeline. Can we meet tomorrow?
James replied within three minutes.
Of course. Are you all right?
I touched my swollen cheek.
Everything is perfect, I typed. It’s time.
That evening, Leonard came by.
Lucy must have told him something, though clearly not everything. He arrived around seven, still in his work clothes, tie loosened, hair damp from the rain. He looked around the apartment before looking at me, as if checking whether I had broken something.
“Lucy said there was an argument.”
I sat in my chair with an ice pack against my cheek.
“Did she?”