Give birth as soon as you can, croaked Grandma Mary, swinging her legs off the bed.
Mary was in her eightyseventh year and had long since forgotten what it felt like, yet her grandson and greatgrandson kept nudging her, sometimes tapping her with a cane:
Stay put and youll be left remembering us, but then itll be too late.
Now Mary grew melancholy, refused to rise, and began to scold the household for no good reason: Why did I raise you all, you snails, only to have you nap till noon? The kitchen pots clanged at half past six in the morning.
The family grew uneasy.
Grandma, asked fiveyearold greatgranddaughter Lucy, why dont you swore at us any more?
Its time to go, love, its time, Mary sighed, speaking of the time to die either with a sad sigh for a life slipping away or with a faint hope for something beyond the stew you youngsters can no longer manage to boil.
Lucy darted to the kitchen where the rest of the kin were gathered.
The badgers dead! she announced, reporting the latest covert intel.
What badger? raised the family patriarch, also Marys eldest son, Victor James, his bushy eyebrows arched. He looked like a character out of an old English folk tale, the sort that the wind seems to wander through.
Probably an old one, Lucy shrugged. She had never seen the creature, as Mary never showed it to her.
The elders exchanged glances.
The next day a composed doctor paid a visit.
Grandma seems unwell, he diagnosed.
Obviously, Victor slapped his own thighs, thats why we called you!
The doctor glanced thoughtfully at him, then at his wife.
Agerelated, he declared without hesitation. I dont see any serious abnormalities. What are the symptoms?
She stopped telling me when to make lunch or dinner! All her life she poked her nose in everything, saying my hands werent meant for it, and now she wont even step into the kitchen, Victors wife, Margaret, said in a trembling voice, already feeling like a grandmother herself.
At the family council with the doctor they agreed the signs were worrisome.
Exhausted from worry, they fell asleep as if they might disappear.
During the night Victor awoke to the familiar shuffling of slippers. This time, however, it wasnt the urgent clatter that demanded breakfast and work.
Mum? he whispered into the hallway.
Hmm, came a curt reply from the darkness.
Whats up?
Yes, I think Ill slip away for a date with Tommy Smith while youre still snoozing, Mary murmured, sounding as if she were regaining her senses. Im off to the loo, where else would I go?
Victor flicked on the kitchen light, set the kettle boiling, and sat at the table, clutching his head.
Hungry? Mary stood in the corridor, watching him.
Waiting for you. What was that, mum?
Mary shuffled to the table.
Its the fifth day Ive been cooped up in my room, she began, when a pigeon flew into the windowbang! I thought that was a death omen. I lay down, waiting. Day after day, and now Ive woken in the dead of night thinking, Why not let that omen wander to the woods and let me burn through life under the covers? Bring the tea, hot and strong. Three days with you, son, weve barely spoken; well catch up.
Victor finally fell asleep at half past five in the morning, while Mary remained in the kitchen, determined to make breakfast herselfnothing else would feed the children properly if she didnt.
In the quiet that followed, the household learned that even as bodies falter, the will to care for one another endures, reminding them that lifes value lies not in how long we linger, but in the love we keep stirring into each days brew.
