Sarah shrugged off her black coat, draped it over the couch and made her way to the kitchen. There she found her three aunts arranging deviled eggs and cold cuts on a large platter. 

''Oh pumpkin, c'mere.'' Her busty Aunt Gladys embraced her in a hug of Midnight in Paris and hairspray,
''She is in a better place I believe, and you still have us.''

The other aunts nodded their heads as they now arranged pigs in a blanket into a shallow basket. The food set out on the wooden table looked delicious. There was ham and chicken legs, huge tureens of mash potatoes and Aunt Sharon's famous collard greens. They were grieving my Mom's death and handled that the best way they knew how. With a full table of comfort food.

Sarah waved to Mrs. Goodwill from down the street, then wearily walked up the stairs. She had been living with her mom for the past twenty years. Her father had left when she was young, to her Mother's long standing chagrin.

Sarah had once been in love, but he had left her also. For years she had lived with the mystery of her fiance, Charles. One day he was here, ready to marry her, then the next thing, he was gone from the face of the earth.

Stepping into her Mother's room, brought back 47 years of bittersweet memories. How many nights had she sat here, brushing her Mother's hair as she continued her rage against men?

Sarah sat on the edge of her Mom's bed. The chenille blanket draped over this antique bed was patched and worn. The whole house was patched and worn, frozen in the sixties. Her mother just could not move forward and now she was dead.

Sarah reached up to the top shelf of her mom's closet. Her Aunt Flora had asked for a Hermes scarf belonging to her mom. She was heading back to Florida tomorrow and would ''love to have a small keepsake from her darling sister.''

The smell of moth balls hung heavily in the air. Sarah retrieved the battered box and shut the closet door quickly.

On top of the box, lay the coveted scarf. Sarah held it to her face and breathed in the familiar scent of her mom, with an overlay of paradichlorobenzene.
She put the scarf aside, then rifled through the box.

A yellowed envelope lay tucked in at the very bottom.

Sarah gasped as she recognized the slanted handwriting. Slanted handwriting addressed to her!
She slowly opened the letter and sadly, slowly, shook her head.

''My dearest Bunny...''
By the time she had gotten to,
''Forever in love with you, Charles,'' she was shaking in rage.

Now everything made sense. Her mother and Charles, always arguing, his sudden disappearance, and now, her Mother's blatant deceit.
''You can do so much better dear.''

Sarah checked the date. Of course. She had been in Chicago for that two month course when this letter had arrived.

She and Charles had just agreed to marry before she had left.

She smiled sadly, remembering that picnic in the park.
He had called her Bunny and she had replied,
''If I'm your bunny, then dangle a couple carats under my nose!''

He had laughed and gathered her in his arms.
''Okay, will you marry me?''
She had agreed and that was the last time she had seen him.

Now, she was reading his final, desperate plea for her to run away with him. The words seem to shift across the page.

''If I don't hear from you, I understand. I will move on and you won't hear from me again. Your mother and I will just never agree.''

Sarah thought back to that time. Her mother's constant complaints about Charles, about her father, about her own life.

The gloomy house they shared, echoed in negativity and despair.

Sarah folded the letter carefully and made her way downstairs.
Her Aunts were now making tiny sandwiches, cutting the crusts and feeding them to the plump dog.

She walked in and instantly realized that they knew. They knew and had kept their sister's selfishly cruel actions from her.

As Sarah stood, hands defiantly on her hips, her aunts all looked up at once.
Aunt Gladys stiffened and frantically whispered....

''She knows.''