“Helen sent me,” Carol said, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. “She said, and I quote, ‘Tell Milly that if she makes me play with that new nitwit Myrna one more time, I’m going to use a West Wind tile as a suppository.’ So I’m here to kidnap you.”
Carol stopped. She looked at the Mahjong set on the table. Then she looked at Milly. She didn’t offer pity. She didn’t say “I’m sorry.” She just sat down, unzipped her bag, and pulled out a set of oversized Mahjong tiles—the kind for visually impaired players, with raised Braille-like bumps on the faces.
“Shuffle,” she said.
After the game, over stale coffee and store-brand cookies, Carol lingered. “You’re really good,” she said to Milly. “You almost had that Chow in the second round. Why did you break it up?”
Then the letter came.
“The AARP loaned them to me,” Carol said, her voice steady. “I told them it was for a ‘senior accessibility pilot program.’ Which is bureaucrat-speak for ‘our friend is too stubborn to ask for help.’”
Two weeks later, Carol was no longer the newbie. She had learned to hold her tiles close, to discard a seemingly useful Bam just to watch Rose flinch. She had learned to laugh at Helen’s ferocious scorekeeping. And she had started bringing better cookies.
Milly stood in the doorway of her own living room, feeling frail. “I can’t. I can’t see the tiles anymore.”
