There Was an Old Woman Read Free Page A

selected a quote from a reporter’s viscerally melodramatic eyewitness account:
    I learned a new sound—a more horrible sound than description can picture. It was the thud of a speeding, living body on a stone sidewalk. . . . Thud-dead, thud-dead—together they went into eternity.
    Thud-dead, thud-dead, together they went into eternity. The elegiac passage, more poetry than prose, moved Evie profoundly. She couldn’t imagine today’s Daily News or New York Times printing anything like that.
    As she finished showing Connor around, taking notes on his suggestions for ways to tweak the displays and adding to her to-do list, she was reminded what being senior curator meant. Much as she might delegate, she was the one responsible for seeing that every little detail, down to the spelling on the signage and the training of security guards, was done properly and completed in time for the opening gala.
    When Connor stopped to chat with Nick, who was carefully cutting away the protective covering they’d built around the airplane engine, her phone chimed again. Evie reached into her pocket and turned it off.
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    Evie meant to call Ginger back. Really, she did. But she got pulled into one meeting and then another. Two hours later, eating a midafternoon granola bar instead of lunch, she was back in her office, the door closed, trying to finish editing transcripts of eyewitness accounts of the fires before the voice-over actors arrived to record them. When her cell phone rang, she recognized the number with its Connecticut area code and for only an instant considered not answering it.
    â€œDidn’t you get my message?” Ginger started right in.
    â€œI’m sorry. I was tied up. I was going to call back but . . .” Evie bit her lip and took a breath. She didn’t want to make it sound as if her time was more important than Ginger’s. “Listen, I am sorry. I should have called you right back. How’s Ben? The kids?”
    â€œYou know that’s not what I called about. It’s Mom.”
    â€œAgain,” Evie said, at the same time as Ginger.
    Even though there was nothing even remotely funny about that, and even though she knew that laughing was wildly inappropriate, Evie couldn’t stop herself. A moment later, Ginger was laughing, too, and that made Evie laugh even harder until she nearly dropped the phone and had to sit down to keep from peeing in her pants.
    At last, laughed out and gasping for breath, she wiped tears from her eyes. “So how bad is it?”
    â€œShe fell and dislocated her shoulder this time. And I guess it was a while before she managed to call for help. Mrs. Yetner left me a message. She’s at Bronx Metropolitan. The shoulder’s not all that serious. It’s everything else that’s the problem.”
    Evie thought she had a pretty good idea what that meant. “You saw her?”
    â€œJust for a few minutes. She was barely conscious. Stabilized is what the doctor called it.”
    â€œStabilized,” Evie said. Did that mean she was going to get better? Or was she going to stay as sick as she was?
    â€œOn top of everything else, the EMTs who pulled her out alerted the health department. They sent an investigator over to the house. They say the place is a health risk. If it gets condemned—”
    â€œCondemned? You’ve got to be kidding.”
    â€œI guess it’s gotten that bad. If Mom can’t go back, she won’t have anywhere to go and, well . . .”
    Evie finished the thought: then she’ll have to move in with one of us. Ginger couldn’t be thinking that Mom could move into Evie’s one-bedroom apartment. Ginger was the one with a house. A guest room.
    â€œEvie, I can’t always be the one,” Ginger said.
    â€œWhy does it have to be either of us? She’s a grown-up.”
    â€œShe’s never been a grown-up, and you know it. And now she’s