One Hundred and One:

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE:

Sarah

Sarah Carr ran down her hallway and stopped before a mirror to check her cropped, spiked hair. “Pushing sixty-three but I don’t look a day over forty-five.” Her laughter was a sad, husky sound in this house. Self-affirmations like these got her through the day.

Flat shoes thumped the floorboards as she searched for the keys. Sarah considered herself, and with a certain amount of pride, as a hip nanna in high-waisted jeans. The kind of nanna her grandchildren could approach with anything. Nobody would deny her open-mindedness, maybe even calling her a little different by Bridge standards—yet still she wore those shoes. Always. Those sensible flats, as reliable and well-worn as her wisdom.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself,” she told her grandkids, their round, innocent faces staring up at her. “And those aren’t my words.” It was one of her recycled lines, one that left her feeling a little flat, a little well-worn herself. Though she sometimes spoke His words, she didn’t give a flying fuck about God anymore.

Still, a large, garish crucifix hung around her neck.

“Every nanna needs her bling,” she once said to fellow parishioners after a Palm Sunday luncheon, face still streaked with ash. They glared at her, shocked. “Oh, come now, Madame here isn’t fading into the background. How else are the young going to know who to turn to if us old biddies are invisible?”

Hot air blew through the house. Unusual for autumn.

She doubled back to the mirror and snarled, checking for lipstick smears; were she to see them on someone else, all conversation must cease until the affected person rectified the matter. “Don’t be bashful, Joan. If a bird shat on my shoulder and I hadn’t noticed, wouldn’t you hand me a Kleenex?” Mitigate your humiliation, that was her policy. Relieved, lips drew shut, shielding smear-free teeth.

A heavy voice floated up the hall. “Sarah!”

“What do you want?”

“I’m dy-iiinnnggg.”

“Oh, jump in the lake.” She picked up her over-the-shoulder purse and went to her husband. She found Bill Carr upright in bed with tissues stuffed in his nose.

“I thought you’d left and left me for the crows.”

“No, sorry, sweetie. I’m not having any dirty birds flying around inside, thank you very much. When you’re a hairsbreadth away from meeting our maker, I’ll ever so gently throw you on the lawn. Got to keep clean house.”

“Your kindness knows no bounds.” He chuckled, coughed, a wet rattle in his throat.

“Love, I’d fix you another batch of warm lemon tea if I had the time.”

“No, it’s okay. I like sounding this way. I sound all gangster.”

“Ah, posh Gangstah!” She waved him off and returned to the hall. “Have you seen the thingies?”

“The what?”

“You know, the thingies?”

“What thingies, you silly old bat?”

“The doo-en-acky. Oh, shit.”

“English, woman, for Heaven’s sakes. And swear jar, please. I may be bedridden and dying but I’m not deaf. Dollar to the fat lady, thank you muchly.”

Sarah went to the mantelpiece and found her husband’s wallet. She took a dollar coin and ran to the hallway table. Upon it was a wooden moneybox in the shape of a female Islander. The coin slipped through her breasts and disappeared with a clink.

“Done.” Then resumed her search. “Now where is it? If I keep this up, I’ll miss the bus to town.”

“I’m a sick man. Enough with the badgering, you coot.”

In the living room, she lifted a lounge cushion, revealing keys bound to a ring with a thumb-sized photograph of her grandkids in a silver frame dangling from it. “Found them, Bill, you can stop searching.”

Sarah glanced around the room. Small. Neat. Theirs. She opened both the front and back doors each Saturday to let the breeze flow through, sitting in the airflow with her eyes closed. Bill often found her there, silhouetted against the sun, cursing. The crucifix about her neck reminded them of who betrayed whom. Sarah never forgot those who had crossed her.

Congratulations, ma’am. You’ve won our annual sweepstakes. And your prize—yep, that’s right, your husband has cancer!

Sarah thought it a terrible injustice to witness her husband’s slow death, day after day, and feared living on once he was gone.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Bill asked, the last word dropping as Sarah emerged in the doorway, straightening her collar. She showed him the keys.

“Ah, keys! Keys they are called. You’re losing it, old woman.”

She buckled her cowboy belt. For years, she’d been trying to lose weight. Now she couldn’t keep it on. Stress took its toll. “This old gray Dane, she ain’t what she used to be.”

“What do you need them for anyway?” Bill coughed again. “I’m not going anywhere so you don’t need to lock up.”

“Bill, you never know these days. Anyone could just waltz on in and rob us blind. God only knows you’re not going to get up off your throne and defend our telly, right?” She ran to the foot of the bed. “And don’t forget, our darling daughter is coming by with Madame Five to see her pa-pa after lunch, so don’t go and, like, die or anything before they get here, ’kay?”

“Begone, foul hob!” He threw his arms at her. “The power of Christ compels you!”

“Jump in the lake. Bye-bye, baby-luv.”

“See you later, Peggy-Sue,” he said.

Sarah ran out the door and slammed it shut. Silence descended over the house, disturbed only by the occasional shuffle as the near-dead man wrangled with his bed sheets.