For thirty two years, George’s car had been among them every single morning. Then he was gone, and everything changed.
I slipped on my robe and quietly left the room. This apartment, nearly thirteen hundred square feet, had once been a canvas for George and me.
We bought it back in the eighties when California was not yet impossibly expensive. We added a second floor and built a patio while weaving so many plans into these walls.
Now it had become a battlefield, and I, Adelaide, felt like the losing side. The kitchen was spotless because of a habit ingrained from my decades as an emergency room nurse.
Order was paramount when chaos swirled around you. I put the kettle on and reached for my one small indulgence, which was a box of delicate Earl Grey tea from a little shop near my old workplace.
My daughter in law, Melinda, drank only coffee from capsules and always wrinkled her nose at my tea. While the water boiled, I started mixing batter for waffles.
My son, Phillip, had loved them since childhood. Even now, in the middle of everything, I made them every Saturday.