Rebecca sank into her chair and turned on the television. She was so alone. She never thought she would live so long. Alone so long.
She didn't want to think, not about then or now. She told herself not to cry. Which had the opposite effect, and always did.
Her husband had died sixteen years ago. She always thought she would go first. Her younger sister, Dottie came to live with her then, having buried her own husband three years before.
Her sister had died two years ago.
Never had she imagined this is how her life would be, alone. She told herself she wasn't alone, she had friends, a gang of old ladies as herself, who went to bingo games, played mahjongg and on occasion went to the casino.
Yet...
Yet she had never thought she would wind up living so far from the city where she grew up, so far from everyone she had known.
Of course, most of those she had known were dead.
The punishment of a long life.
She thought of her late husband, Maxie. How he used to talk so much. He used to fill the house with sound. She remembered how she met him, just after World War II.
When the War began, she had been dating Michael Greenberg. He had enlisted, and was sent overseas. He was her first boyfriend, and she had written to him every evening.
She had a job in a factory, as did many women. With the men away, so many jobs were available. Each evening when she left work, she returned to the apartment where she lived with her mother, and younger sister, Dottie. They would have dinner, listen to the radio, and she would find a corner and write to Michael.
He had made her a ring out of a screw, and engraved his initials, M.G. She had worn it as if it were an engagement ring.
Michael died in the war.