Deep-Holes, by Alice Munroe

She is shaking with anger. What is she supposed to do, go back to the condemned house and scrub the rotten linoleum and cook up the chicken parts that were thrown out because they’re past the best-before date? And be reminded every day of how she falls short of Marnie or any other afflicted creature? All for the privilege of being useful in the life that somebody else—Kent—has chosen?

He’s sick. He’s wearing himself out; maybe he’s dying. He wouldn’t thank her for clean sheets and fresh food. Oh, no. He’d rather die on that cot under a blanket with a burned hole in it.

But a check, she can write some sort of check, not an absurd one. Not too big or too small. He won’t help himself with it, of course. He won’t stop despising her, of course.

Despising. No. Not the point. Nothing personal.

There is something, anyway, in having got through the day without its being an absolute disaster. It wasn’t, was it? She had said “maybe.” He hadn’t corrected her.

And it was possible, too, that age could become her ally, turning her into somebody she didn’t know yet. She has seen that look of old people, now and then—clear-sighted but content, on islands of their own making.