On Tuesday, she was still

talking. She asked me to call her

Grandmother, even though that word

felt too stiff to me. Distant

was how she liked it. I let her correct my French

while I read A Year in Provence

and imagined the impossible

green and lavender fields blossoming

in her mind. Friday drugged her up,

eyes half moons. I could smell her

dying skin. Her youngest son

had finally killed his liver

and himself alone in a hotel room.

I didn’t tell her. No one should

know their child is dead.

She looked at the empty space

beside my body and asked, no

softness in her thin voice, where

had Russell gone where

did he go, as though

he’d just left the room.

When she turned her head

towards me it creaked like a door.

Author Name with bio and links.