Living Alone

A Story by Ally

22 year old Lily has dinner with her elderly neighbor.

Living alone is easy.

You don’t have to explain to anyone where you’re going. You can watch The Bucket List as many times as you want. You can even choose to live in your hippie pants for a week and not have to listen to your jerk of a roommate tell you you’re “giving people the wrong impression.”

You do, however, have to have dinner every Sunday with your elderly neighbor, Saoirse.

It’s not so bad, though, because Saoirse makes a hell of an Irish Stew.

“Get your arse in here. You’re late,” Saoirse grumbled in her scratchy irish accent, “What the hell is wrong with you? Making a old woman, like me, wait. Waitin’ for me to keel over, yeah?”

“Sorry, I had to feed George before I came. She’s getting old so she has to be hand fed now.” I chuckled as I slipped through her doorway, gave her two kisses on each cheek, and promptly took my place at the end of her old, rickety kitchen table.

“You’re a weird kid, Lily. What kind of person names their cat, George?” Saoirse chided while waddling over to her seat, directly across from mine.

“The kind that doesn’t want to curse their pet with a stereotypical name, like ‘Fluffy’,” I muttered while shoveling some of the piping hot Irish Stew into my ornately decorated bowl, “You know, you really should give me the recipe for this.”

“And have you make it by yourself, and butcher my family recipe?” Saoirse scoffs, “I think not!”

“I think you’d just miss me, Saoirse.” I say, pointedly. Four years ago, on the Sunday I moved in, I helped Saoirse bring in her grocery bags, and ever since then she’s insisted I join her for dinner. I have never once refused. Not because I’m lonely or can’t make food for myself, but have you ever tried telling a cranky old irish woman “no”?

“Yeah, yeah, you keep telling yourself that, you little miscreant.” Though she denies it, I know Saoirse loves me as if I’m her own granddaughter. Saoirse has helped me through every problem I had ever faced since my 18th birthday. She’s the only person who made sure I don’t retreat into my introverted little shell and I’m the only person who made sure she didn't forget to bring in her mail. She’s the only person I really care about, and I’m the only person she really cares about.

Once dinner was finished, Saoirse went into the kitchen to get us some Irish Cream Coffee as we did every Sunday, and I decided to set up her DVR so we could continue to watch old reruns of The Golden Girls.

Then it happened.

All of a sudden, I heard the ringing sound of glass smashing on the ground.

“Saoirse?” I called out, “Are you okay?” I expected to hear her mumble about how coffee cups these days are being cheaply made in China, but instead I heard nothing but my own heart beating in my ears. Time slowed down. My bones were rubber and my skin was on fire. I pushed myself off the couch and ran toward the kitchen. Nothing could’ve prepared me for what I saw when my feet hit the tile floor. Saoirse was sprawled across the floor like a child’s raggedy doll. I collapsed to the ground, sobbing, screaming, trying to flip Saoirse on her back. Scrambling to flip her over on her back.

I scrambled to get a grip on her shoulders and flip her over, when my entire body went numb.

Red.

All I saw was red.

Her eyes were open and all there was, was red.

My mind buzzed around in the fit of adrenaline. I couldn’t focus on anything. All I could think about were Saoirse’s open eyes and the baseball sized dent in her skull, burning an image in my mind forever.

911. I need to call 911.

Frantically, I pulled out my cell phone and somehow managed to tap the 3 buttons I needed to get Saoirse help.

The next couple of hours went by like I was in a movie, and I was watching everything from outside my own body. The paramedics came and went with their sympathetic looks and there was nothing you could do’s. The hardest part was watching them call the time and pull the white sheet over her pale face and empty eyes, so unfamiliar to how she looked at me.

Now, I’ve adopted those eyes. I look at the world with the same dead eyes I saw that day, wishing I could have done something. I’ve tried to recreate my own Irish Stew, but to no avail. No one can make it like Saoirse. Sometimes I find myself walking out of my apartment ready to slip through her front door and kiss her two freckled cheeks, when I stop and realize I’m alone. It’s been six months since Saoirse died in front of me, and today is Sunday. Mother’s Day Sunday.

Living alone is hard.