Mrs. Dunwiddy licked her fingers clean with a small purple tongue, and she shuffled over to where Fat Charlie was sitting, his food as yet untouched. When he was a little boy he had truly believed that Mrs. Dunwiddy was a witch. Not a nice witch, more the kind kids had to push into ovens to escape from. This was the first time he’d seen her in more than twenty years, and he was still having to quell an inner urge to yelp and hide under the table.

“I seen plenty people die,” said Mrs. Dunwiddy. “In my time. Get old enough, you will see it your own self too. Everybody going to be dead one day, just give them time.” She paused. “Still. I never thought it would happen to your daddy.” And she shook her head.

“What was he like?” asked Fat Charlie. “When he was young?”

Mrs. Dunwiddy looked at him through her thick, thick spectacles, and her lips pursed, and she shook her head. “Before my time,” was all she said. “Eat your cow foot.”

Fat Charlie sighed, and he began to eat.

It was late afternoon, and they were alone in the house.

“Where you going to sleep tonight?” asked Mrs. Higgler.

“I thought I’d get a motel room,” said Fat Charlie.

“When you got a perfectly good bedroom here? And a perfectly good house down the road. You haven’t even looked at it yet. You ask me, your father would have wanted you to stay there.”

“I’d rather be on my own. And I don’t think I feel right about sleeping at my dad’s place.”

“Well, it’s not my money I’m throwin’ away,” said Mrs. Higgler. “You’re goin’ to have to decide what you’re goin’ to do with your father’s house anyway. And all his things.”

“I don’t care,” said Fat Charlie. “We could have a garage sale. Put them on eBay. Haul them to the dump.”

“Now, what kind of an attitude is that?” She rummaged in a kitchen drawer and pulled out a front door key with a large paper label attached to it.