The hearse arrived early the day she died.

She sat up in bed and craned her neck at the window. Her first lucid words in months were: “Have they come for me?”

Sitting in the chair beside her bed, where he had waited eons for her to wake up, he said, “They’ve come for your family.”

She laid her head back softly on the pillow.

He took her hand.

She suddenly opened her eyes wide and said, “My family?”

“I sold the farm. They’ve come to move your family’s graves into town. The backhoes and bulldozers are already here.”

“But this is my farm,” she said. “My family’s farm.”

He released her hand and sat back in the chair.

She looked out the window again. “Why is there snow on the ground?”

“You went into a coma when we were watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.” He stood and went to the window. “Next week is Christmas.”

“You sold–you couldn’t wait till I was gone?”

He wouldn’t disturb her with the details of the insipid cliche–the overused narrative–they found themselves in. The crop had failed that year and he hadn’t been able to pay the back taxes. The bank would have bought the tax lien, but a white knight made an offer for the farm that covered the taxes and most of her medical bills–in addition to moving her family cemetery into town.

He simply said, “Don Dickson made a fair offer that keeps the farm from the coyotes.”

She closed her eyes and murmured, “Don Dickson.”

He approached the bed and rubbed her dying arm. He adjusted her stocking cap and pulled it down over her ears. Her hair had never grown back after chemo ended in the spring.

She slapped his hand away, and, flashing an angry smile full of teeth, said, “Don Dickson was the only man I ever cheated on you with.”

Leave a comment with your choice for his response.

A. He says nothing. He sets his jaw and listens carefully to the cold coyote calling in the distance.
B. He says, “I know. Me too.”
C. He picks up a crochet-covered throw pillow and says, “It’s medication time.”
D. Invent your own.