Fiction: A woman reluctantly lets her soon-to-be ex-son-in-law take care of her after an accident

She awoke in her own bed but, while inhabiting that minor moment before consciousness, assumed she was still on the concrete where she’d fallen. This was perhaps attributed to the fact that last night, immediately before she’d retired to her bedroom, leaving her nearly former son-in-law in her living room and lit by the glow of a television she knew he felt was beneath him, he’d asked quietly, “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

No, she did not. But despite that, here was her mind working against her, right on time to fuck her over as usual. She remembered trying to give the unhoused man cash, and their disastrous embrace. She remembered falling; she remembered thinking desperately please not my hip. At her age, that was the beginning of the end: the hips.

God listened and, like some wily genie obsessed with loopholes, opted for her head instead.

She’d come to with the police and paramedics looming over her. “I don’t need an ambulance,” she said, immediately fretting over cost. She was on Medicare, which would help, but still. Yes, there was copious blood; however, head wounds bled profusely and deceptively, she knew that. In another life, she would still be retired, but...

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