She was baking an apple pie for our grandson’s birthday when a puddle from the sink made the floor slick. I was watching the evening news when I heard her cry out.
“Gerry! Help!”
I ran in and found her on the linoleum floor, clutching her hip, her face pale with pain.
“I think it’s broken,” she whispered.
The ambulance came quickly. At her age, a hip fracture is serious. Surgery followed, and the doctors said recovery would take time.
So for the first time in decades, I found myself alone in our house.
The silence felt wrong.
Martha had always filled the place with humming, footsteps, the quiet sounds of everyday life. Without her, the house felt too big, too empty.
I visited her every day at the rehab center, but the evenings stretched long and lonely.
That’s when I started hearing the noise.
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