That hammer.  Of all the things in her many, years of living, loving, laughing, crying, now ultimately of dying, that hammer was the only thing that came to her mind.  A  tiny hammer, rust-worn by use and wear, the ball-peen’s two-pound head, spotted with  speckled red paint dwarfing the white birch handle streaked black with age and use, an “e” burned into the wood, denoting the first and only man to own that hammer thus far.  That hammer was all that Anna could see right now.

Had it really only been a month?  Just thirty short days ago, Anna had been home, in the home she shared with Elijah for sixty years: for better or worse.  These days were decidedly worse.  Elijah had done himself a favor ten years prior and made his way directly to the eternal beyond after too many years spent two hundred feet underground saw to it that he only needed six more feet of dirt to hold him down forever. 

Only thirty days ago, that was all.  Then Anna had all her things, all her faculties, and all her limbs about her.

When Elijah had been quite near to his leave taking of her, Vera, and her husband, the lawyer, had a wondrous idea.  In the event of a full and speedy recovery, a trust for the entire of Anna and Elijah’s possessions and assets would take care of them.  Forever and ever and always.  Of course, this was because of while Vera was the baby of the family this was merely an arbitrary chronological titling.  Her siblings, each in their own way were equally as infantile.  As Vera and her fashionable husband made themselves a home far the mountains of her parents; thusly not monitoring Mother and Daddy’s money and how her siblings might encourage or discourage her darling parents from spending whether that be on items they needed or wanted without turning first to her irked little Vera to no end.  So, bullying their way through the document, which was only slightly shorter than War and Peace, Vera and her husband less than gently convinced a grief numb Anna and a medication addled Elijah; already with one foot out the door into the great beyond, to sign.  And that was that. 

Vera and her purse holder of a man had brought along to the bedside a notary; a boy she had gone to school with who always had been willing to do anything for her.  All Anna could think at the time was “I’m calling his mother – again”.  She did.  As soon as they all left her alone with him to file their precious papers.  “Disgraceful,” screeched Thomas’ mother.  Yes, it was, she thought.  Of course, Elijah never got any better, until he raised up the energy to get better so he could fix to die.