Son

Little old woman, with freckled frail fingers, lives alone.  She rocks silently in the chair in the dusty old room, the sunshine pouring through the window and warming her cold stiff body, riddled with arthritis and more importantly, warming her soul.  She can rest here and dream of how things will get better when her son finally moves in with her as he had promised so very long ago. Any day now, she reassures herself, that he will arrive.  Her phone service cut off, she could not pay that bill, she has no one to reach out to when she is feeling scared or lonely and the house is deathly quiet.  Gingerly she gets up and carefully walks to the kitchen for something to eat.  The fridge is bare except for some dried up grapes, a swig of milk left and a couple of celery stalks.  She goes to the pantry and pulls out condensed soup and saltine crackers.  As she sits at the table, head in her hands from exhaustion and desperation, she prays her son will arrive soon, as she is not sure how much longer she can live this way. Or live at all.