My husband's death smelled of cardamom. Death smells of many things, but my first memory of it was of cardamom and soft butter buns. It was Sunday morning.
He told me that I had to come to the cardiac unit immediately. I screamed again. Then I heard Elmer crying from his cot. A switch inside me flipped.
I felt the blood drain from my pounding head, the sweat on my hands turning to ice. Suddenly I was calm. A sharply focused but remote kind of calm.
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