Joyce didn’t ask what was wrong. She just set the plate in front of me. Two eggs, over hard, just the way I liked them. Toast, cut perfectly from corner to corner. Coffee, sugared exactly to my liking. She didn’t ask if I wanted it. She just put it there. And then she went about her morning as if everything was normal.

I ate it all. I felt like I was going to choke on every bite, but I ate it. It was the only way I knew how to say thank you. We never talked about it. We never talked about the layoff or the fear or the way she knew exactly when I was breaking.

When I smelled the eggs this morning, my chest felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. I gripped the edge of the kitchen counter until my knuckles turned white. It was the same smell. It was the same sound. It was the same life I thought I had buried two Marches ago.

Heather walked into the living room. She was holding a plate and a mug. She looked tired. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her hair was pulled back in a messy bun, just like Joyce used to do when she was scrubbing the floors. She set the plate down on the table in front of me.

“Eat it while it’s hot, Grandpa.”

She didn’t smile. She didn’t offer a platitude. She just stood there, waiting.

I looked at the toast. It was cut corner to corner. I took a sip of the coffee. It was sweet, just the right amount of sugar. I felt like I was dreaming. I felt like I was going to wake up and find her sitting in her chair, reading the paper.

“How did you know?” I asked. My voice sounded thin and brittle.

Heather pulled out the chair and sat down across from me. She looked at her hands. She was tracing the edge of the table with her thumb. She was silent for a long time. I watched her. I looked for Joyce in her face, in the way she held her shoulders, in the way she breathed.

“She told me,” Heather said finally. She looked up at me then. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “She told me a long time ago. She said that you are a stubborn man, and you never ask for help when you are scared.”

I felt my heart skip a beat. I wanted to look away. I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to know that Joyce had been watching me even then, even when she was perfectly healthy, even when she was laughing at the neighbor’s dog.