My blood boiled, but before I could respond, the neighbor across the street—the woman who had given me the letter—spoke from the doorway with a firm voice that carried the weight of having watched this family’s neglect:
“The only thing that young man did was take care of her when none of you bothered to come see her.”
A heavy silence filled the room.
Carmen’s children understood they had little to do there, that their presence was no longer welcome in the place their mother had left behind.
They left with the same hurry they had arrived with, moving through the door like people who were already forgetting, already moving on to the next obligation.
They didn’t even ask how her final days had been.
The Life That Followed
After the funeral—which I paid for using some of Carmen’s money, making sure she was honored properly—I returned to the house alone.
