“I thought you was goin’ inside,” Tess said wryly.
Charlie rolled his eyes, “Maybe I was. Maybe I wasn’t.”
“Now don’t skip your iced tea to spite me, you old coot,” she quipped back, her voice condescending.
“Woman…” he shot back, his voice irascible for a moment before fading away. Starting, as she was, over the yard to where the Spanish moss hung from the trees, Tess could not see Charlie without turning her head, which she was loathe to do on account of her arthritis.
“Charlie, are you sassing me?” she teased over her shoulder. He did not answer. A breeze blew quietly by. The cat got up, looked around, then lay back down. “Charlie?” Tess twisted her aged body to look and saw Charlie slumped quietly in his rocker.
With great speed than was probably healthy for her joints Tess was out of her rocking and standing over Charlie, shaking him gently. But she knew. She was no stranger to death. The tears came easily. Her hand trembled.
“Oh Charlie,” she said sweetly, “I was kidding about the cat.”