PART 1
My sister Clara was the family member everyone called when they needed a favor. I used to think she liked being needed because she never complained. She never raised her voice, never asked for gas money when she drove our cousin three towns over for physical therapy, and never reminded anyone about the hundred dollars she handed my brother back in October for his truck insurance.
Looking at the suitcase sitting by her hallway radiator, I realized I could not remember the last time any of us asked what she wanted.
She babysat our grandchildren on short notice, brought homemade vegetable soup whenever someone had a bad cold, and lent out savings without asking when we could pay her back. After she had her gallbladder surgery last month, our family group chat lit up with well wishes. We all promised to take turns helping her around the house during her recovery. By the third week, I was the only one still showing up with groceries and checking her drainage stitches.
I brought dinner that Tuesday evening and found her sitting on the kitchen floor beside an open leather suitcase. Her hair was pulled back with a clip she had worn since we were teenagers, and her hands were steady as she folded a stack of cotton pillowcases.
When I asked what she was doing, she did not look surprised to see me. She just pointed to a yellow legal pad resting on the linoleum next to her knee.
She said she was leaving in the morning.
I stood there in the doorway with a warm foil container of pot roast in my hands, asking where she could possibly be going when she could barely lift a gallon of milk. Instead of answering with words, she turned the legal pad toward me.
On the paper was a list of names. Every single name in our immediate family was written down in her neat cursive. Next to each name, she had drawn a firm red line through the ink, crossing them out one by one until only her own name remained at the very bottom.
