The Love of My (Other) Life by Traci L. Slatton Page A

psychotic.”
    “He’s eccentric. Scientists are like that.”
    “Brian is way further along the cuckoo scale than eccentric.” I scowled.
    Mrs. L shook her head. “My generation wasn’t so hung up about sex. In fact, we invented kinky sex.”
    “Cavemen did that,” I demurred, “which explains why men are all so fixated on sex. Even scientists.
    They’re all really cavemen.”
    “Oh no, you don’t understand, it was my generation that really explored kink,” Mrs. L insisted.
    “We were desperate to get away from the war. You wouldn’t believe the naughty things Bernie and I did.”
    I laughed helplessly, but I didn’t inquire. I didn’t want to know. “Why don’t I take you outside? It’s another nice day.”
    “I don’t think so,” she said, and melted into her pillows. “Could you push the bureau so it’s flush with the end of the bed? I like looking at the photos.”
    I got up and strained to push the heavy mahogany bureau. “Are you tired again today, Mrs. L? Are you taking your meds?”
    “Just a small shift to change the perspective,” she murmured. “I don’t feel like going out or seeing anyone. Just you, Tessa, you’re so bright and dear.
    Suddenly you’re very spirited, too. But I’m not. I’m winding down like an old watch. I want to do that in peace.”
    My heart clutched in on itself. “A full care facility—”
    “I’m staying here,” she said firmly. “Bernie and I lived here in this apartment for fifty years. It’s full of us, of our life together. Keeps me from being lonely.”
    I stood by her bed and picked up her hand and stroked it. “Mrs. L, you can’t take care of yourself.
    What would have happened to you yesterday if I hadn’t come along when I did? You could have been sitting out there all night.”
    “I get myself food when I’m hungry, and I have clean clothes.”
    “You need more care than that,” I said, but gently because she was dear to me and I didn’t want to upset her.
    “No, I don’t. I don’t want to have a lot of tubes running into my arms and medicines pumped into me. I don’t want to lie in some strange bed at the mercy of strangers. What an inhumane way to die!”
    “You could have a lot of time left, and the quality of that time—”
    “Is up to me,” she stated. She gave me a solemn look. “The quality of anyone’s life is always up to them. Everyone chooses how they feel in any set of circumstances. I always feel my love for Bernie and our children. Now I’m unraveling, and I don’t mind. After ninety years, that’s what happens. That’s what’s supposed to happen. Oh, there’s a gift for you.
    On the bureau.”
    I wanted to argue with her that she should let herself live, that half a life was still precious. One look at her set face told me it was pointless. Wonderful, she was; easy, not so much. I found a rectangular brown-paper package on the bureau. “What’s this?”
    “Wait to open it until this weekend,” Mrs. L said.
    “Saturday. Open it after Saturday.”
    “You didn’t have to do this, Mrs. Leibowitz.”
    “I know. I wanted to,” she said in a soft, slow voice. “Doing what you want is the prerogative of the dying. Should be the prerogative of the living, too, but it doesn’t always work out that way.”
    “I don’t want you to die!”

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22
Where the past meets the future

    Brian stood outside my building. Next to him were a stack of my canvases and two suitcases. He was holding my laptop computer under one arm and my drawing pads under the other.
    I sprinted toward him, turquoise slippers slapping the sidewalk. “Brian, what’s going on?” I cried.
    “José changed your locks. Luckily, he let me in to get your stuff. He’s a good guy.”
    “The board locked me out?”
    “They want you to make a substantial payment toward what you owe. They’re actually trying to avoid court.” Brian shrugged.
    “This isn’t legal, it can’t be,” I said.
    “We’re here now, what do we