My Sweet Annie

34

The next morning, around nine, I woke to Ana sliding out from under the blankets. She smiled apologetically when she caught my eye. "Sorry. I was trying to be sneaky."

"It's hard to be sneaky when the bed's the size of an egg carton." I yawned, rubbing my hand over my eyes and rolling onto my back.

"It's hard to be sneaky when I have morning breath from hell."

"Don't worry: I can't smell it over my own."

She giggled, springing up from the bed. It didn't surprise me in the least that she was a morning person. Porkie sidled to the edge of the bed and looked down at the floor, measuring the jump, but Ana picked her up and set her down. "I'm going to let the Porkster out. Do you mind if I take a quick shower? I have work today, so I should probably smell lemony fresh."

I sat up, smothering another yawn. "Take a long one, if you want. Just let me brush my teeth real quick."

I followed Ana down the stairs. As she watched Porkie in the yard, I brushed my teeth, scrolling the morning news headlines on my phone to get a sense of what was going on in a world from which I now felt disconnected. A high-profile court case had been decided in favor of a baker who'd refused to make a cake for a gay couple back in the early 2010s. Primary elections for the 2018 midterms were in progress. Facebook was in trouble again for privacy issues. A volcano had erupted in Guatemala, twice—many people had died, and many more were still missing.

It was easy and probably natural to focus completely on my own life, my own losses, but there was a whole world out there. It made me feel small, but in a comforting way, my own tribulations fitting into the giant tapestry of human struggle as a footnote to a footnote.

I left Gran's nicest bath towel and a washcloth on the bathroom counter for Ana. When I stepped out of the bathroom, I noticed that Gran's bedroom door was, once again, ajar.

Strange: seeing that the door had swung open again was more irritating than frightening in the bright light of morning. I sighed, pulled it closed again, and headed into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee and portion out Porkie's breakfast. When I came back out with a cup of coffee, the bathroom door was closed.

I sat down at the dining table with my coffee and picked up my phone again. Just as I pulled up an article to read, the shower started.

A little while later, I was halfway through an article about President Trump being President Trump when my phone rang, vibrating in my hand and startling me. It was Uncle Royal.

I picked up the call. "Hello?"

"Tabitha, good morning. I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No, not at all. Good morning, Uncle Royal. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm doing just fine. I just wanted to call and check up on you and see how things are going out at the house."

"Things are going okay. Slow, but I'm making progress."

"I heard there was a dreadful accident out there."

My heart sank. "Yes, there was."

"Mark Lassiter. You know, he used to go to my church. A very nice man."

"I'm so sorry. It was awful."

"Do they know what happened to him?"

I shook my head, although Royal couldn't see me. "Not that I know of. They had a lot of questions for me, but I didn't see anything. It seemed to me like it must have been some kind of a medical emergency. A heart attack, or something." I tried not to feel the shadow of foreboding I felt saying that, knowing how many others had experienced the same thing on my grandmother's property.