My name is Evelyn Dawson, and I was seventy six years old when everything beneath my life quietly began to shift. Franklin was seventy eight, and we had three children, our son Gregory living in Scottsdale with his wife Linda, and our daughters Theresa and Monica , both settled near Providence.
Every holiday, our house filled with the scent of baked cornbread and cinnamon, and laughter that carried from room to room. That was the life I knew, and that was the life I believed would always remain.
The first sign came on a Tuesday in late October when the leaves had turned into brilliant shades of orange and gold. I had gone to the pharmacy to pick up medication, and the pharmacist casually mentioned that Franklin had called earlier to change his billing address to a post office box in Norwalk, a place I had never heard him mention.
I told myself it had to be a simple mistake because Franklin had become forgetful with age and small details often slipped his mind. However, soon after that, I noticed he began closing his laptop whenever I walked into the room, even though he had always claimed computers confused him.