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summed up all the absurdity of the twenty-first century by telling her that her call was being
recorded.
And finally, praise Mary, an actual human voice.
“This is 911, what is your emergency?”
The woman on the floor who had once crawled after the chickens in southern Italy spoke clearly
and coherently in spite of the pain. “My name is Concetta Reynolds, and I live on the third floor of a
condominium at Two nineteen Marlborough Street. I seem to have broken my hip. Can you send an
ambulance?”
“Is there anyone with you, Mrs. Reynolds?”
“For my sins, no. You’re speaking to a stupid old lady who insisted she was fine to live alone. And
by the way, these days I prefer Ms.”
2
Lucy got the call from her grandmother shortly before Concetta was wheeled into surgery. “I’ve
broken my hip, but they can fix it,” she told Lucy. “I believe they put in pins and such.”
“Momo, did you fall?” Lucy’s first thought was for Abra, who was away at summer camp for
another week.
“Oh yes, but the break that caused the fall was completely spontaneous. Apparently this is quite
common in people my age, and since there are ever so many more people my age than there used to be,
the doctors see a lot of it. There’s no need for you to come immediately, but I think you’ll want to
come quite soon. It seems that we’ll need to have a talk about various arrangements.”
Lucy felt a coldness in the pit of her stomach. “What sort of arrangements?”
Now that she was loaded with Valium or morphine or whatever it was they’d given her, Concetta
felt quite serene. “It seems that a broken hip is the least of my problems.” She explained. It didn’t
take long. She finished by saying, “Don’t tell Abra, cara. I’ve had dozens of emails from her, even an
actual letter, and it sounds like she’s enjoying her summer camp a great deal. Time enough later for
her to find her old momo’s circling the drain.”
Lucy thought, If you really believe I’ll have to tell her—
“I can guess what you’re thinking without being psychic, amore, but maybe this time bad news will
give her a miss.”
“Maybe,” Lucy said.
She had barely hung up when the phone rang. “Mom? Mommy?” It was Abra, and she was crying.
“I want to come home. Momo’s got cancer and I want to come home.”
3
Following her early return from Camp Tapawingo in Maine, Abra got an idea of what it would be like
to shuttle between divorced parents. She and her mother spent the last two weeks of August and the
first week of September in Chetta’s Marlborough Street condo. The old woman had come through her
hip surgery quite nicely, and had decided against a longer hospital stay, or any sort of treatment for
the pancreatic cancer the doctors had discovered.
“No pills, no chemotherapy. Ninety-seven years are enough. As for you, Lucia, I refuse to allow you
to spend the next six months bringing me meals and pills and the bedpan. You have a family, and I
can afford round-the-clock care.”
“You’re not going to live the end of your life among strangers,” Lucy said, speaking in her she-