Victor barely turned toward her, and in the dim light his face held no guilt or fear, only the calm of someone who had already made his decision days earlier.
“Your grandmother Ruth will be here in the morning,” he said quietly. “She will take care of you both.”
Emily stood still, trying to understand how someone could say something like that and continue breathing as if nothing had happened. The door closed, the elevator descended, and the silence left behind filled the apartment like something alive.
Ruth arrived early the next morning carrying a suitcase, two grocery bags, and a controlled anger she pushed aside for later. She hugged Emily until the trembling stopped, then lifted Jason into her arms and held him until he fell asleep against her shoulder.
She was sixty two years old, lived alone in Tulsa, and had buried her daughter three months earlier. Now she realized she had also lost her son in law in a different way, though she believed he was not worth grieving at all.