Ever After by William Wharton

yourself.” Then he’d hang up. It was always the same. We never knew what she was saying. When I finally asked, he told me she was threatening to kill herself because nobody loved her.
    My last dealings with Aunt Emmaline were sad ones.
    My younger sister, Camille, and I were living in California. I was in Venice, and Camille in Culver City. Mom’s mother, our grandmother, was living in Santa Monica. Emmaline was living in West Hollywood. Grandma was more than eighty at the time.
    Grandma called Camille and said she’d been trying to phone Emmaline for three days and nobody answered. She’d taken a cab over to her place but it was all locked up. She wondered what she should do. She was crying.
    Camille phoned me. It was evening and Danny was home so I asked him to watch Wills. I drove over to Camille’s and from there we headed to Emmaline’s. Neither of us was particularly concerned. It wasn’t the first time Emmaline had gotten so far out she didn’t answer the phone. But we weren’t looking forward to it, either.
    From previous visits, we knew how to climb through the bathroom window. We parked the car, walked up the hill to her apartment. We knocked several times and rang the bell, but nothing happened. We went around to the back. We promised each other this was the last time we’d ever do this.
    I pushed Camille through the little window and she came around to open the front door for me. It was dark, and we turned on some lights. We called out, then saw that the light was on in her bedroom, coming out from a crack under the door.
    When we went in, I almost fainted. Even Camille, who’s pretty tough, turned her back and screamed.
    Aunt Emmaline was stretched out on the floor beside her bed, practically naked. There was shit and piss on the bed, on her and on the floor. We could see right away she was dead. Camille turned back around and stared.
    â€œWe’ve got to phone somebody, the police or somebody.”
    But the phone was beside the bed, just in front of where she was spread out. We stood there. Then Camille went around the other side of the bed, reached across and gathered in the phone. She sat down on the floor. I tried to move close to make sure Aunt Emmaline was really dead. She was. She was beginning to stink and it wasn’t just the shit and everything. I slunk around and scrunched down on the floor beside Camille. She had the phone on her lap and looked at me.
    â€œI think we ought to call Mom and Dad. They’d know best what to do. What time is it there?”
    We figured it had to be about seven in the morning. Camille made two mistakes dialing but finally got it. Her hands were trembling.
    She explained the situation as carefully as she could. Dad was on the phone and Mom was on the extra ear-extension they have on French phones. We could hear Mom crying. Dad wanted to know how we were, what we’d done so far.
    Camille told him. There was a long quiet pause; we figured he was talking to Mom.
    â€œOK, first look around and see if there’s any kind of a note, anything like that.”
    We put down the phone and started looking. Camille found a bunch of insurance papers all spread out on the desk. It was good having something to do. I kept trying not to look into the open eyes of Aunt Emmaline. We came back and told Dad what we’d found.
    â€œPut them back into the drawer of the desk, sort of spread around. Don’t touch anything else. Just make sure there are no notes.”
    We did that.
    â€œNow call the police and an ambulance. Stay there till they come. Then, as soon as possible, go home and, if you have any, take a sleeping pill. I’m sorry you kids had to do this, but it was bound to happen. Just remember, it’s what your aunt wanted.”
    We did all that and everything went off fine. They put it down that Aunt Emmaline had died of a stroke or something; a friend arranged this with the police so Aunt Emmaline