Umber (70)

Oleander sat perfectly still for a long moment, staring into my face but not really seeing me, as if she had just heard a secret from a voice that reached her from a great distance.  She sat there for so long that I started to worry.  Maybe I had upset her.  Maybe she was having a stroke?  Maybe this was too much for her.  What if, by coming here and reminding her of her childhood, I was causing her so much stress that she was going to keel over, dead!

“Oh, saints preserve us,” I whispered to myself.

I considered calling Benny.  Just as I was about to reach over and shake her arm to see if she was alright, Oleander’s eyes refocused.  Slowly she regained an alert expression.  Then moving so abruptly that I flinched, she lifted the bag of photos.

“Well, let me look,” she said.  She scattered the photos, cards and paper dolls on her table, the dresser and the bed.

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