Where there's a Will, there's a Way.

I left my 100th birthday party to go upstairs to my bedroom and write my will. It wasn’t that the party had been a complete disaster, but after a century of procrastination, I felt that it was now time to pick up a pen. My hip cracked suspiciously as I climbed up the stairs, and I would have been worried that somebody heard the creaking of the wooden floorboards, but the animate chatter, conversation and laugher in the living room downstairs drowned out every other noise in the house. The bedroom door was open, I hadn’t bothered to close it for years now, even though the sheets attracted the cat hair more than any other fabric in this house. But there was no point in trying to get rid of it now, the cat was free to roam around either way. It was probably downstairs with all the other guests that my cousin Loreley had insisted on inviting. She was twenty years younger than me, and was not only head of the bridge club and an active participant in Senior aquarobics twice a week, but also managed to regularly show up at the house for dinner, using every chance we got to make icy comments about my cooking. She loved me in her own way, and of course I knew that. It was her doing that half the town was gathered in my living room today. It was a Saturday, and so course everyone had showed. With gifts, wrapped in ridiculously large amounts of colourful paper. They had brought flowers and chocolate and homemade cookies, handing them over to me and placing them on the living room table with nostalgic smiles. I knew all of the guests, and could remember a surprisingly large number of names as well, but the looks on some of their faces still left me convinced that they had thought I had been dead for years. I wished Harry was here so that we could laugh at them together. Our wedding picture was standing on my night table, next to the book I hadn’t picked up in months and the lamp that refused to function exactly every two weeks. 

I sat down on the bed and let my heart return to its regular rhythm. I had ran two marathons in my life, and yet, here I was, an old lady panting from walking up one flight of stairs. I picked up the old photo to look down at Harry’s smile, his warm brown eyes framed in black and white, his left hand on my waist, the other holding mine. Forever frozen in time. I scrutinized my own face: the only wrinkles were the ones around my eyes from smiling. I was slender, with the long wavy hair I had cut short after Harry’s funeral, and high heels that were barely visible under the long, white wedding dress. How I wished he was here, and look at the celebration I had caused by living for an entire century. But enough with the sentimentalities. 

I put down the picture, and got up to walk over to the desk below the window. The sun was already throwing the first evening shadows in the garden, and I could make out a few of the guests admiring the apple tree Harry and I had planted the year we had moved into this house. It was almost harvest season. Strange, how the years passed by so quickly without me noticing. My kitchen calendar was still showing the month of April, simply because I had refused to turn the pages according to everyone else’s assumption of time. 

I picked up my old fountain pen and ripped a single piece out of the pad of writing paper. It was embossed with my initials, an absolutely hideous Christmas gift from one of Loreley’s girlfriends. It was just good enough for what I was about to write. But how was I supposed to start? I hesitated for a second. There was probably a right way to do this, standardized by some weirdly specific branch of our government. But where was this country going if we had already started to standardize death? So I began with the simplest, most important thing. Emma Ophelia Winchester, born 29th of August 1920. I was tempted to put down a day of death as well, but then reminded myself that this document was not the best place to make assumptions about the future. It was about settling what I already knew. I heard laughter from the party downstairs. How long would it take them to notice I wasn’t there anymore? I took up the pen to write the next line. I am leaving all my belongings to… I paused. I was relatively sure that this was the general way to approach will-writing, but the next part of the sentence was the one that I was truly worried about. I had no children, no grand-children, no siblings, no husband. I didn’t own much, other than this house and the basic necessities I kept in it. Loreley didn’t need any of it, I was sure of that. She had her own home, with an overly decorated terrace, a garden with bushes that were trimmed once a month by someone she paid to do it, and a living room with a television that filled a whole wall. She wouldn’t know what to do with my belongings, other than selling them and donating the proceeds to the bridge club. And I had never cared for bridge. So that was surely not the way to do it. 

I sat in thought for a few minutes, looking out into the garden, the apple tree, the fields in the distance. If I had to leave all of this to someone, it had to be a person who I knew would appreciate it, like Harry and I always had. And while I rummaged my brain and my memories for that particular person, a single fact became clearer and clearer until I could no longer ignore it. I had not yet met this person. I had spent a century on this planet, and somehow, had not yet met a person other than my husband whose name I could write down on this piece of paper and trust it was the right one. I stood up. There was no point in sitting around aimlessly when there was work to be done. I had an heir to find. 

My handbag was hanging on the bedpost, with my wallet, a small bottle of water and the keys already packed. I looked around the room, and took both my pen and the unfinished will as well as the photo from the nightstand. There was nothing more that I really needed. I looked at myself in the mirror on my way to the door. I was still wearing my favourite blouse, and a pair of pants that would surely be comfortable enough to allow a bit of walking. A hat was missing, but Harry’s old fedora was laying in the closet like it had been waiting for this day. It concealed my white hair very nicely, and I only had to put on a jacket in order to be ready to go. The bedroom door creaked loudly when I shut it behind me, full of surprise towards my unprecedented attempt to have it closed. I wasn’t worried about the party guests hearing me as I walked back down the stairs. They couldn’t stop me now. There was still music and laughter and conversation in the living room as I walked down the hallway towards the entrance door. The smell of cake and champagne lingered in the air, but I had eaten enough earlier to not be tempted again. I had more important things to take care of. Quietly, I opened the front door and drew in the first breath of air. It was still warm, but I knew I would need my jacket once the sun had set. Nobody came to ask where I was going when I slipped out the door. I closed it behind me and made my way towards the fence gate that was leading out to the street. It would take me into the town, and maybe even further.