The silver carving knife slipped on the bone of the Easter ham, leaving a thin red line across my thumb that nobody at the table noticed. They were too busy staring at the hallway that led to my empty upstairs bedrooms.
“It is only four steps up from the main landing, Margaret,” Linda Mercer said, her voice dripping with sweet, dramatic tones. She adjusted her heavy silver earrings, the metal clicking against her collarbone. “Frank can manage four steps. He does not need a ranch house yet.”
Frank, her husband, cleared his throat repeatedly before he spoke. His low, gravelly voice seemed to rattle the fine china my late husband had bought me for our twentieth anniversary. “The apartment complex in Dublin is raising our rent by four hundred dollars a month. We have to be out of there by the first of May.”
I rubbed my gold wedding band, sliding it back and forth over my knuckle. The smell of the glazed ham and roasted asparagus suddenly made me feel slightly ill.
“That is exactly six weeks away,” I said, choosing my words slowly and deliberately.
