I slowly set the basket of rolls back down on the wooden table, folded my cloth napkin neatly beside my plate, and pushed my chair backward.
“Please excuse me,” I said softly as I stood up.
I did not retreat to my cramped bedroom, but instead I walked directly out the backdoor into the cool night air. The backyard was brisk that evening, and I sat down on one of the metal patio chairs that no one ever used. I looked up at the twilight sky painting Mesa in shades of dark orange and slate gray, taking deep breaths of the desert air.
I was never a woman who cried easily, and Walter used to joke affectionately that I possessed the structural strength of a lighthouse during bad weather. I had spent seven decades learning how to keep myself composed, but sitting outside in the cold, I finally allowed myself to feel the crushing weight of the last two years.
I felt the heavy sting of being completely invisible, the humiliation of being introduced as a temporary guest, and the painful memory of Pamela discussing my financial cost to the family. Now, my own son had asked me when I was leaving without showing a single trace of hesitation or regret in his voice.
I began to think practically about where I could possibly go, which was a terrifying prospect for an elderly widow. Our original family home in Albuquerque had been sold eight months after I moved to Mesa because Brandon insisted that keeping it empty was wasting my modest savings. He had been practically correct, but I had wept quietly for three straight days after the closing papers were signed, and not a single person in the family had bothered to ask me why I was crying.
The sale of that home had left me with two hundred and forty thousand dollars in my bank account, which was supplemented by my modest Social Security checks and Walter’s small pension. It was enough money to live on carefully, but it was certainly not enough to purchase a comfortable house in the current real estate market without completely exhausting my funds.
