There was nothing like bad news to sober me up. I gave Grace a big hug and rushed toward my grandmother’s apartment. It was a small two-bedroom outside of Aurora, a quick twenty-minute drive from my place. I thought back to when things had turned from simple to not—the times before Grams got so sick.

It had started with forgetfulness that I had chalked up to old age. I picked up the slack for everything that wasn’t getting done. I paid the bills, did the laundry, shopped for food. We curled up on the couch every night and watched reruns of All in the Family, her favorite ’70s sitcom.

Things got worse as time went on. I missed a lot of school but somehow graduated. Grams stopped showering. She stopped eating. She stopped being Grams. The day she started the kitchen on fire was a wake-up call. I could no longer leave her alone, but I wasn’t capable of caring for her needs. That’s when I hired a home health aide. That’s when I moved out to make room for the overnight nurse. That’s when my life turned to shit.

I rushed up the steps past the wall of mailboxes to the elevator. I tapped my foot on the worn black and white tile and pushed the button that no longer lit up. In the corner was a potted plant full of faded plastic flowers. The kind old people took to the cemetery to put on graves.

The elevator doors screeched open, and I climbed in and pushed the button for floor five. The small box lurched up like my 120 pounds was pressing the weight limit. It chugged along until it came to an abrupt stop at my destination. I ran down the hallway with my heart at the soles of my shoes. I rushed past the faded wallpaper, the faded paint, and the fading lives that lingered behind the closed doors. Each step beat me up for not being here.

Things had been so hectic lately. With the missed meetings and flubbed presentations, I’d failed to get the business off the ground. Each task was a time vampire that sucked the minutes from my days. Failure became synonymous with my name. Business failures. Life failures. Failure to recognize Grams’s downward spiral. When had she gotten so low?

This stroke, the at-home nurse had told me, was only a matter of time. But it wasn’t time. She was all I had left in this world. She had to be okay.

I opened the door and edged forward, tiptoeing into the apartment. My heart thumped in my ears, breaking the deathly silence around me. I moved forward one step at a time to its haunting rhythm.

A soft glow came from Grams’s bedroom. A ray of light spilled into the dark corridor like a beckoning beacon of doom.

Gone was the smell of Gramps’s aftershave. Gone was the sugared, cinnamon aroma of my youth. Gone was the Aqua Net hairspray Grams used to get three days out of her hairdo. The place smelled like antiseptic, plastic, and death.

I moved like molasses in winter until I arrived at her bedside. She looked like a child, so weak, so frail, and so small.

The nurse looked up from her magazine with sad resignation in her blue eyes. She rose from the bedside chair. “I’ll leave you two alone.” Her white nursing shoes creaked all the way to the door. The sound faded with each step until it completely disappeared.

My knees sank to the olive shag carpet next to the bed, and I wept. I held on to Grams’s frail hand. My tears fell and followed the veiny path of her crepey skin. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here all week.” I swiped at my tears and looked at the beautiful woman lying in front of me. I pushed back the shock of white hair that lay across her forehead. It was as soft and white and wispy as the clouds.

Pull it together. My shoulders unfurled with each deep breath I took. “I have a job,” I lied. I wanted to fill her head with positive thoughts. “It’s such a good job, Grams. All Flight Graphics is taking off.”

The room was warm, but a bone-chilling shudder shook me. I adjusted the collar of her pink flannel pajamas and pulled the quilt up under her chin.

“I got a new chair for my apartment.” The smile on my face was fake, but she wasn’t looking at me. I’d once heard that if you smiled while you spoke, it showed up in your words. I wanted my words to sound cheerful. I would never tell Grams I’d found the lawn chair on the curb on trash day. She’d be appalled at how I lived.

“Get better so we can make cookies and drink tea together.”

Grams’s eyes fluttered and opened. Her weathered hand pointed to the painting I’d given her two Christmases ago.

Art pumped through my veins. No day was complete without a doodle, a dabble of paint, or a dash of artistic inspiration. I’d been drawing, painting, creating ever since I could remember breathing.

Her fingers shook, but she continued to point at the painting like she wanted to see it up close. She could have what she wanted. There would be no denying Grams.

I stood and walked to the picture. It was a small brown bird that sat alone on a leafless branch. And although the bird was alone, I’d always considered the picture hopeful. I lifted it from the wall and carried it back to the woman who’d raised me. A tear slipped from her eye. With one hand, I held the picture, and with the other, I brushed the tear away with the pad of my thumb.

“You want to see this?” Seated on the edge of her bed, I held the picture at eye level. Her lips moved, but nothing recognizable came from her mouth. The stroke had stolen her words, but she pointed her gnarled finger to the bird painted in the corner of the canvas and then pointed at me. She poked at the scar on my shoulder like a crow pecking at roadkill.

I didn’t know what she was thinking—or even whether she was thinking—but she seemed adamant about something. Then her hand fell to my lap.

Her lips twitched into something like a smile, and her eyes closed. She was gone. Not gone to sleep, but gone for good.

* * *

I sat in the front pew of the church with Grace after the priest said a few words. The saint statues around the room looked down on me in judgment. They didn’t have to; I had judged myself. I had promised to be there, not only at the end, but all the in-between times, and I had failed.

The sanctuary was silent. It was like the world had stopped for a moment to say goodbye to Agatha Barrett.

“She’s better off,” Grace whispered.

People always said stuff like that. Shit like she’s no longer suffering, or she’s in a better place, but how did they know? I snagged a Kleenex from the box that sat next to me and sniffled into it.

This was the second time I could remember sitting in this church saying goodbye to someone I loved. I’d been here once before, for Gramps’s funeral ten years ago, but I had no memory of burying my parents. I had no recollections of anything before coming to live with my grandparents.

An elderly woman I recognized as one of Grams’s neighbors shuffled with her walker past me and patted my hand. A few people came and went, but the turnout was small. Grams hadn’t known many people. She’d kept to herself. The first part of her life had been all about Gramps, and the last twenty years had been all about me.

Her home healthcare aides visited one by one and gave me words of encouragement. Her attorney swung by to remind me of our get-together that afternoon at the apartment.

The funeral director approached. “It’s time to take her to the cemetery.” He apologized for rushing us, but there was another service starting soon. I glanced back to the double doors of the church where another casket waited.

I gathered my things and followed Grams’s casket out the side door.

Grace and I were the only ones at the graveside ceremony. The sun still shone. The birds still sang. Life went on for everyone but Agatha Barrett. Grams’s coffin was lowered into the ground, and the dark brown soil swallowed the wooden box that held her. I placed the wreath of flowers Grace had bought over the mound of dirt and walked away. I was officially an orphan.

“You okay?” Grace wound her arm through mine and walked me to her car.

“No. The other day you called me an orphan, and I snapped at you. Now I am an orphan. I have nobody.”

Grace pulled me to her side and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “You have me. I’ll be here for you. You’re the sister I never had but always wanted.”

I buried my head against her shoulder and followed her to the car. The sun released its warmth around me, but I was cold and empty inside.

We arrived back at the small apartment I grew up in. It was odd walking into the place knowing she was gone. I stood in the middle of the room and waited for Grams to holler at me to come give her some sugar. I always threw myself into her arms and gave her a kiss. When I was a kid, I’d come home from school and find her in the kitchen waiting with cookies and tea. Those days were long gone, but the memories would be mine forever.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay until the attorney gets here?” Grace looked between the door and me.

I knew she’d stay if I asked, but I wouldn’t ask. Grace had to get back to work. She’d already missed several days helping with the arrangements. Thankfully, Grams had set up a prepaid plan for her burial. I had no idea what I would have done if that hadn’t been the case.

I walked around the room and traced the dusty knickknacks with my fingers. “No, I’m going to pack up her things. The landlord stopped by yesterday and told me he had someone moving in the first of the month.”

“You can’t catch a break, can you? That’s two places you have to vacate before the month is up.”

One look around the apartment and I knew there wasn’t much here worth saving.

“My place is easy. I only have to toss out a lawn chair and a TV tray. The rest I’ll shove into the back of my car.” Thank goodness I’d gotten Gramps’s old Jeep when he passed. Grams had never learned how to drive, and given that my parents had died in that horrific car crash, who could blame her?

“I’m a phone call away. Let’s meet for dinner tomorrow at Luigi’s at six—my treat. You can tell me all about the millions Grams had stashed away that we didn’t know about.” Only Grace could make me smile at a time like this.

I hugged her tight like she might disappear forever. “See you tomorrow.” It was hard letting her go, but it was necessary. I couldn’t pull Grace into the dark abyss with me. She was light like the sun, as warm as its rays, and right now I was cold and dark.

The apartment was old and dated like the seventy-two-year-old woman who had lived here. She’d collected clowns, which I’d always found kind of creepy. I rummaged through the curio cabinet and found the happiest-looking one of the bunch. It would be the only one I’d keep. Next I walked to her bedroom. Being very Catholic, she had the obligatory crucifix hanging on the wall and a statue of Mary next to her bed. I picked up her family Bible and set it aside to pack. The only art that ever hung from the light blue walls was the painting I’d given her. I’d keep that too.

It took an hour to box up her clothes for the homeless shelter. The woman in charge promised to pick them up later if I left them in the lobby.

The door buzzer rang as I organized the kitchen. I pressed the intercom. “Hello?”

“Ana? This is Taylor Goodwin. Can I come up?” He spoke with authority, with the kind of voice found in the courtroom, and I wondered whether he’d always been a probate attorney.

“I’m in 5G,” I said and pressed the buzzer so he could enter. I wanted to slap myself because he knew where Grams lived. He would have visited her at least once before to draw up her will.

The cogs and pulleys of the old elevator creaked and croaked until it made its way up to the fifth floor where I waited. The doors opened up and spit out a ball of a man. He was well-fed and well-dressed.

“Ana?” He held out the doughy hand that wasn’t gripping his briefcase.

We shook, and I invited him in. He made his way into the kitchen. Yep, the man had been here. The kitchen was the heart of this home, and it was the only place Grams entertained.

“Tea?” I opened the cupboard to get a mug. It was a clown mug. It mocked the somber situation with its brilliant red smile.

“No, thank you. This shouldn’t take long.”

I closed the door on the laughing clown’s face.

The fact that he had to come at all was a surprise. “What can I do for you?” I pulled out my usual chair and sat. Mr. Goodwin remained standing, which meant it would be quick.

“As you know, your grandmother didn’t have much in the way of liquid assets.” He looked around the kitchen as if making a point. “She had one thing she wanted you to have besides her small life insurance policy.” He reached inside his briefcase and pulled out several papers and something shiny he palmed in his pudgy fist.

“She left me life insurance?” I had no idea there would be anything of financial value, certainly not an insurance policy.

“Don’t get too excited. It’s a small five-thousand-dollar policy. Not enough to retire on.” He looked at my hands gripping the edge of the table. “Are you okay?”

“I’m shocked. I expected nothing.”

Mr. Goodwin shrugged as if her gift was unimportant, when in reality it was the most generous thing I could have received. Five thousand dollars meant I could eat, put gas in my car, and find another place to live.

He placed a piece of paper on the table in front of me. “Sign here and here.” He pointed to two sticky arrows already in place.

“Is this for the insurance?”

“No, I have the information you need to contact them. This is for the deed to the house.”

I shook my head to rattle some sense into his words. Grams didn’t have a house. “What house?”

He pointed to the address at the top of the page. “Your grandmother purchased this house years ago for pennies on the dollar after the old owners died and the taxes weren’t paid.”

I stared at the man as if he were a clown from Grams’s collection. “If she had a house, then why would she have stayed in this apartment?” The place was a total shithole. Not as much of a shithole as the place I lived in, but it had been built in the ’70s and never updated. Avocado appliances were still in their places on the harvest gold linoleum floor. A percolator that died years ago took up residence on the faded gold Formica counter.

“I can’t tell you. All I know is you’re the owner of a house in Fury, Colorado.” He handed me a key—the shiny thing he’d taken out with the papers—and collected the signed deed.

I sat in shock as the attorney found his way to the front door and left.

“I have a house,” I said to no one. My fingers opened to reveal a lone key on a ring. A key that would undoubtedly change my life.