The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

by Colleen Oakley

“Why is it called a grandfather clock and not a grandmother clock?” her eldest granddaughter, Poppy, asked once. “Because only a man would find the need to announce it every time he performed his job as required,” Louise replied.

Louise had the brief thought that she might quite enjoy being a widow, were it not for the whole Ken-being-dead part. She had forgotten the freedom that came with being alone. Not that Ken had ever been overbearing or controlling in their forty-three years together—the opposite, really—but even in the most egalitarian marriage, one still had to consider the other person. And now, she had no one’s feelings to consider but her own.