When Elizabeth, a widow of seventy, a mother and grandmother, looked back on her life, it was empty.
When her huband died it was no more distressing than hanging up the wash just before the rain. She felt nothing for her child or grand children and after a obligatory visit at the birth of each, never saw them. Yet, she regretted nothing.
She would never love anyone but herself. She would never feel the pain of loss, the emptiness, the hurt by the actions or inactions of another.
Whatever she was capable of feeling beyond herself, she felt it for Jeff.
She never lost her temper, never was flustered or anxious, because she never cared.
Each year, on the day that Jeff died, she went to the beach. She would think of the past, but each year she felt less and less.
She would force herself to remember Jeff, but the memories had long faded.