The Fall of Life

Fiction Short Story

Anna McGee was signing a birthday card for her oldest daughter, Chelsea, at the kitchen table and enjoying a late morning cup of coffee.

The card was lovely, with pastel rosebuds, delicate greenery, and threaded all around the edges by dainty ecru ribbon. Inside, was one of the most touching verses Anna had ever read. The florist will deliver the bouquet of freesia sometime this afternoon. Chelsea loves freesia and it really does have the most heavenly scent.

She spent nearly the whole morning in the card store yesterday laughing at the silly ones, fighting back tears over the sad ones, and suddenly, there it was, the perfect card. It captured all of her sentiments exactly about maternal love, and the pride she felt in the woman and mother Chelsea had become.

Then something odd occurred to her. Friday, Chelsea would be forty-eight. The thought caught Anna off guard, like a sucker-punch to the solar plexus, and she couldn't catch her breath for a minute.