“Marissa,” I said, “I was paying taxes, keeping a house, burying parents, and surviving surgeries before you finished college. Don’t stand in my living room and speak to me as if old age began the day you became inconvenienced.”
Color rose in her face.
“This isn’t over.”
“I didn’t expect grace from you,” I said. “But I did expect you to leave when asked.”
She grabbed her purse, left the pastry box untouched on the table, and went out the front door without another word.
I stood at the window and watched her back down the walkway in heels too high for my brick path.
Only after her SUV turned out of the driveway did I open the pastry box.
Chocolate croissants. The expensive kind.
I closed it again and carried it next door to Mrs. Delaney, whose grandsons were visiting for the weekend.
The first week after that felt strange.
Not peaceful exactly. More like the silence after a tornado warning when the sirens stop but everyone is still listening for broken glass.