Anna in the Afterlife by Merrill Joan Gerber

fancy Beverly Hills retirement home.
    â€œJanet,” she said. “I decided I don’t want to live anymore.”
    â€œI know how you feel. I know it’s hard to be old, Aunt Gert,” Janet said kindly if a little impatiently. “But what can you do about it?”
    â€œI already did it.”
    â€œDid what?”
    â€œI slit my wrists. Don’t call anyone…”
    â€œYou slit your wrists? When?”
    â€œTwo hours ago. The blood keeps clotting. I had to cut them again. Then I had to get up again and cut my vein in my elbow. I think it’s working now. There’s a lot of blood. I called to say good-bye. And to tell you I’m going to hide my ring somewhere so they don’t steal it. My ring is for whichever of your children was nicest to me. You decide.”
    â€œMy God! I have to hang up now and call for help.”
    â€œNo, don’t call anyone, this is what I want. But maybe you could get Carol on the line, you still have three-way calling?”
    Just then Danny passed in the hall, wearing his underwear, shaving cream still dotting his face.
    â€œAunt Gert just slit her wrists,” Janet cried out to him. “She said I shouldn’t call anyone.”
    â€œYou have to,” he said.
    â€œFirst she wants to say good-bye to Carol.” Janet was already doing the three-way thing, and then Carol got on the phone, half asleep.
    â€œAunt Gert wants to talk to you, she’s in the middle of killing herself and wants to say good-bye. She slit her wrists.”
    â€œWhat?”
    Gert’s voice came over the wire, weak and helpless.
    â€œGood-bye, children. Life is too much trouble. Don’t be mad at me for this.”
    â€œI’m hanging up. I’m calling the paramedics.” In Carol’s voice was a certain toughness, even a lack of surprise. Carol’s husband had run her in circles for years, threatening to kill himself if she didn’t do this or that the way he liked. What nerve—for Gert to pull a trick like this when Carol had been through hell already with one suicide in the family.
    Why would Gert do this? For attention, of course. Anna wanted to smack Gert hard, give her an Indian burn the way she used to when they were little. She wanted to say “Grow up, will you!”
    In the meantime, Janet was still on the phone with Gert.
    â€œCarol is calling the paramedics, Aunt Gert.”
    â€œWell, I don’t want them to steal my ring. Where should I hide it?”
    â€œYou know that cup with the pencils? You could drop it in there.”
    â€œThe Band-Aid box in the bathroom would be better.”
    â€œYou probably don’t have the strength to get to the bathroom.”
    â€œI think I could,” she said, her voice trailing off.
    Janet just kept her talking until she heard a hard knocking at her aunt’s door.
    â€œOne of the Mexican boys is here,” Gert said. “I hope it’s too late for them to help me.”
    â€œPut him on the phone,” Janet said. She heard her aunt say, “Come in, Julio.”
    â€œJulio? Is my aunt really bleeding?”
    â€œBlood everywhere,” he said. “God save us. Blood is all over.”
    Anna’s two daughters rushed to get dressed and drive to Beverly Hills, where Gert, who always made a big thing about living near Jews, now lived among dozens of them she hated and cursed daily.
    The girls drove along the freeway in a state of shock. The smog was heavy already, sitting on the hills like a smoke ring, making it hard to breathe. Anna had always hated driving behind diesel trucks; she’d read that the fumes could give you cancer. As it turned out, she had had good luck with cancer, she never had any. She’d had plenty of other things to make up for it: her stroke, her broken hip, her lifelong nausea, her gastritis, her arthritis, her glaucoma, her high blood pressure, her—well, what difference did it make now? She was