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“We’re all going,” Abby said.

“I need to get over the shock of her not being dead,” Charlie said, taking another bite of her salad.

Abby grabbed Charlie’s arms, pulling her out of her chair.

A few minutes later, the sisters walked up to Esther’s front door.Her small, strangely narrow house had always unnerved them.The exterior color hadn’t changed since they were kids: gun-metal gray paint with a jet-black door.Morgan thought it was far from the friendliest-looking house on the block.

Charlie knocked so lightly that no one inside could have heard her.“I guess she’s not home,” Charlie said, turning away.Abby grabbed Charlie’s arm and held her there as she knocked loudly.

Esther appeared at the door in a pink housecoat covered in white and yellow daisies, fuzzy slippers, and her alabaster hair in a messy bun.An elderly cocker spaniel wobbled up behind her.

“Hi, Esther, remember us?”Morgan asked.“We’re Carla’s daughters.”

Esther held up one finger, then walked away, leaving the door open.The cocker spaniel stood at the door, glaring at them and snarling with the one tooth it still had.The women took a step back as if it were a vicious pit bull.

Esther came back a moment later, fiddling with her ears.“I was charging my hearing aids,” she said.The dog lunged at them and smacked into the wall.

“Poopsie is as blind as a bat,” Esther said, then picked him up and put him back down facing the other direction.Poopsie wobbled off.

“You’re Carla’s daughters, right?”The women nodded.“I’m so sorry about your mother, the whole neighborhood is upset.She was such a nice lady.Do you know what happened?”

Morgan, Charlie, and Abby made eye contact with each other.

“They think it was a heart attack,” Charlie blurted.

“How tragic, she was so young,” Esther said.

Abby held up the picture of their mom and the unidentified man.“Do you know who this is?”Abby asked.

Esther took the picture and studied it as if she were trying to find a hidden number in an optical illusion.“He used to visit your mother a lot, I thought he was her boyfriend.He’d come over Tuesdays, Thursdays, and every other Friday and stay for about an hour, then one day he stopped coming.I figured they broke up.”She handed the picture back to Abby.

“By any chance, do you know his name?”Morgan asked.

“Oh, no, I stay out of other people’s business.”

Esther rarely went outside, but somehow, she knew everything that happened in the neighborhood, and probably the surrounding ones.She slipped off one of her fuzzy slippers and scratched the top of her foot.The skin on her leg was crepey, and one blue vein on the top of her right toe stuck out prominently.“Do you girls want to come in?I could make you lunch.”

Esther’s loneliness radiated from her like steam rising from a cup of coffee.The sisters declined; Esther nodded sadly.

“How long had our mom been seeing the man?”Charlie asked.

“A little over two years,” Esther said.

They thanked her for her help, then turned to leave.Poopsie trudged back in, barking as though they’d just appeared.

“Come back any time,” Esther said.“Poopsie loves company.Don’t you, Poopsie.”She picked up the dog who bared his gums at the sisters.

The women thanked her and turned to walk home.

“If Poopsie would’ve been able to see us, we would’ve been goners,” Abby said.

“That tooth did look sharp,” Morgan said, and they all laughed.

When they arrived back at their mother’s house, Albert greeted them happily.

Charlie bent down and kissed him on the head.“I can’t believe Mom had been seeing that guy for two years and never said a word to any of us.”

“Maybe he broke her heart, and she couldn’t get past it,” Morgan said.