Old Woman's Word

A ghostly encounter forces an old woman to reckon with a promise she made decades ago.

from Old Woman’s Word:

"Under the blankets she rubbed her knuckles one by one, which had flared from weeks of cooking, baking, sewing, wrapping presents, and the cold in general. Every year around Christmas she spoke about her needing to flee to cold and head back down south (‘where I belong’), but each passing year her comment devolved into the sort of unserious, unreasonable remark that crabby old widows are wont to make- or so her family believed. And every year she mentioned Wilbur, her late husband, who died early in their marriage, and who she said she wanted to be buried beside. For ten years, until she turned 80, she retained a wild look in her eye whenever his name came up or the thought of him crossed her mind; a carryover from her youth that said, ‘I won’t forget you, Wilbur, I won’t dare forget you.’ But in the last few years, the sensation became milder.