Angel by Susan Tepper

This girl Loretta comes to the house to clean up Grandma. She washes Grandma and shampoos her hair. Loretta tells me it took three or four shampoos to get all the white crud off Grandma’s scalp. They get that white crud when they get old she says. It makes me cringe and never want to be old. So I start to research death. So many ways to get it if you want it. I like the swallowing types of death where you swallow a pill or maybe a lot of pills, depending. Then you lie down looking normal and go to sleep. What could be more normal than that? I mention this to Loretta who agrees. She says all the real beauties died rather young. Then she rattles off names: Marilyn Monroe and Princess Di are two I remember her mentioning. You should do it Loretta tells me while she’s cutting Grandma’s hair in the kitchen. Sunlight pouring through the window. All the white hair on the floor is snow. When she gets done Grandma like a deranged angel.

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