Gwen visited the hairdresser the morning of the farewell dinner, and the stylist convinced her to have ginger-toned highlights put in so she’d look her best. Both Gwen and the stylist were pleased with the result. At the restaurant that evening, after the presentation of the painting, Gwen choked on a lump of killer-hot green pepper during the main course and was forced to rush to the washroom, tears streaming down her cheeks. Janey, the company receptionist, followed to ensure that she was okay. But she wasn’t okay. Her insides had ignited, her nose was running; she didn’t want to go back to the table. She wondered why she’d bothered about ginger tones in her hair because grey continued to announce itself at the edges. She felt half-dyed, a retiring scarecrow with a head of straw.

After hacking and gagging and staring at her red face and brimming eyes in the mirror for more than five minutes, Gwen returned to the table. She couldn’t exit the restaurant without walking past the room of colleagues. There was no escape. She sat down, nose still running, tissues bunched in one hand. She picked over the rest of her food. Her boss was telling an off-colour joke. After the punchline, he guffawed and looked over at Gwen and said, “You get me?” But she’d glazed over. No one at the table seemed to get the joke. Gwen, completely depressed, felt a headache coming on and began to count the minutes until she could leave.

The others, oblivious to her flaming esophagus, began to tease about what she and Brigg would do now that she was joining him for extended leisure time. They didn’t know that he’d bullied her into retiring. He wanted someone to golf with, someone who would make the necessary arrangements and then travel with him so he wouldn’t have to look after details. Gwen harboured an intense dislike of golf and would have preferred to stay with her job.

She retired in February. Brigg had a stroke in early March and died in late April. His rapid decline over that two-month period was unexpected, shocking. He was older than Gwen by seven years, and though they’d been married thirty-six years, she had never understood what he saw in her in the first place. Their sons—twins born on Halloween—returned for Brigg’s funeral. They were both involved in high-tech work, and at the end of their university years, not used to being separated, they’d moved to the same town in the farthest corner of Texas, as far away as they could banish themselves. The grandchildren—each son now had one daughter—did not attend the funeral. There were mutterings about the children not wanting to miss school. The girls remained in Texas, along with the wives. Gwen and her sons were the only family members present to mourn. All told, a dozen people attended, including five men from the local golf club.

But Gwen and her sons had little to mourn. Arm in arm, in unbearable silence, the three followed Brigg’s casket out to the hearse. They had done their grieving decades before. After the service and the mercifully short reception, Gwen returned to the house and had the twins gather up the golf clubs—every one—and drive them to the Sally Ann.