church casserole line.
That story cost her nothing.
It paid her weekly.
It might have continued forever except June developed pneumonia.
She was eighty-two now.
Twice hospitalized.
Home on oxygen.
Suddenly aware that time was a finite thing.
And June, after four years of staying mostly quiet, finally stopped cooperating.
At a Sunday dinner, in front of the family, she said:
“Bring me Tori or bring me a phone. But I am not dying politely in a house full of liars.”
Danny swears someone’s fork stopped halfway to their mouth.
