CR!
CRUSH!
[1:04]: Got it
[1:04]: No double letter
[1:04]John:nice
[1:04]John:and is it connected to your life? lol
I glance away from my phone and catch sight of my reflection in the window opposite the desk. My cheeks are slightly flushed and I’m smiling foolishly.
I look down at Wordle, those five green letters staring back at me mockingly.
CRUSH.
[1:06]: Nope.
[1:06]: I guess I was wrong.
14
“I don’t need all those,” Mrs. Finnamore says.
It’s 10:45 a.m. the next day, and I’m sitting in her kitchen with a half-empty cup of tea in front of me. I should have left for my museum shift about ten minutes ago, since I need to pick Jim up on the way, but Mrs. Finnamore is really digging her heels in about taking her medications today. When I came by to set them out at 8 a.m. (the time she’s actually supposed to take them), she told me she would take them after breakfast. When I stopped by an hour later, she said her heartburn was acting up. Now, it’s that she doesn’t need them.
“I mean... it’s up to you,” I say uncertainly, “but you know Debra wants you to take them.”
“Debra is not in charge of me.”
“I know. But the doctor wants you to take them too.” I actually looked all her medicines up online, and some of them seem really important.
Mrs. Finnamore makes a dismissive sound. “Doctors these days don’t know what they’re doing. Bill didn’t take a single pill his entire life and he was fit as a fiddle.”
Bill was Mrs. Finnamore’s husband. I hesitate. “Didn’t he die from diabetes, though?”
She looks at me sharply. “That wasgenetic.”
I sigh and put her med pack down. I have a feeling this isn’t happening today. “Okay, well... I really need to get going.”
Mrs. Finnamore fiddles with the handle of her teacup. “Those doctors didn’t do anything for Bill,” she says, as though I haven’t spoken. “They just wanted him to take insulin. Twenty years, they kept pushing those shots on him. And then when he finally gave in, it wasn’t six months later that he died.”
I bite my lip. I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure Mrs. Finnamore is misunderstanding the situation. I thinknotstarting the insulin for twenty years might’ve been the problem. But I’m not about to say that to her. I bet it helps having someone to blame.
“Do you miss him a lot?” I ask.
“Oh, you know,” she says vaguely.
“Not really.” I give her a small smile. “The longest relationship I’ve ever been in was only two years. Weren’t you and Mr. Finnamore together for, like, forty?”
Mrs. Finnamore fiddles with her teacup for another moment and then lets out a heavy breath. “You young girls are smart not to get married too quickly.”
I hesitate, then say tentatively, “Were you... not happy with Mr. Finnamore?”
“Oh, we were very happy,” Mrs. Finnamore says colorlessly. “But youth is a precious thing.” She looks at me. “You should be very careful not to waste it.”
An unpleasant shiver runs over my skin. I’m definitely going to have to dig into this Bill situation way more sometime. But right now, I really have to go.
