Helen says
The whole place was wall-to-wall cups. Little tea cups and coffee mugs and those tall sort of not-really wine glasses, if you know what I mean. I think she thought of it as a collection, but it wasn’t a collection. It wasn’t really a collection of anything. It was organized in no way I could imagine. Well, I guess it could be that anything she’d recently bought was closest to the entrance. There were a few I recognized from when fast food restaurants used to give away actual glasses, made of glass, with happy meals. For promotions. We had all these cups from movies. Family movies.
(Pause.)
I asked her what she intended to do with all these mugs and cups and she said she’d sell them, she thought, or give them away. She liked them. She said she has a friend with lots of shoes, like this, but she never really liked shoes.
(Pause.)
I told her that she was going to have to make decisions about these things, now. Even write it all down, if she wanted. She knew that we were going to try to sell that house, make her go somewhere they could take care of her, but she didn’t like to talk about it. So that was hard.
(Pause.)
She couldn’t argue against it, but she was scared of it, and didn’t want to live that way. I get it. I wish we didn’t have to make her live that way. But she can’t stay with me. My brother? He doesn’t even know what’s going on.
(Pause.)
She said she wanted me to have them, so I could sell them. But I can’t sell them, they’re junk. I could put them out for a yard sale, but she might see. I don’t know. I wish she hadn’t told me to take them. I don’t want them.
(Pause.)
Isn’t that sad?