The Rose Garden. Maeve Brennan

all been served, she pushed her chair back and said, “Edwin, I have to run upstairs a minute to check on the heat in Susan’s room before she goes for her nap. Delia will bring the coffee inside, and I’ll be down in a second.”

      Upstairs, in the bedroom, she cooled her beleaguered forehead with eau de cologne. She heard the chairs moving in the dining room, and then the happy voices chorusing across the hall. A moment later, she imagined she could hear the chink of their coffee cups. She wished bitterly that it was time to send them all home. She was tired of them. They talked too much. It seemed twenty years since Edwin had carved the turkey.