At eight Ellen Kubek put the bottle of Pisco on the kitchen table and one of her husband’s monogrammed glasses next to it.
She put three ice cubes in the glass.
For the next three hours she didn’t do anything but think and watch the ice melt.
It was the ten-year anniversary, nine and a half since the smell of Eddie’s medicines and that strange smell of plastic tubing and IV bags had wafted out the window for the last time.
She remembered scrubbing the relatively clean indentation of one of the wheels of the hospital bed out of the living room carpet.
Three letters on the table had dog ears on them from her reading them and rereading them and nervously thumbing at them.
“Hell of a decision you made, El,” Eddie's brother Vic had said to her at the memorial service at Galaxy Bowl.
She stood, dumped the melted ice water over her shoulder into the sink, got three more ice cubes out of the freezer, dropped them in the glass and they clinked musically, beautifully.
Ellen didn’t really believe in signs-if she did she might have gotten on the plane ten years and two days ago- but she embraced the sign now.
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