“You Are Heaven-Sent, Cassandra”

“You are heaven-sent, Cassandra,” Marie, the eldest of the four sisters, once told their kindhearted neighbor. Her hands were frail, her eyes tired but warm. “Will you at least allow us to pay you for your help?”

Cassandra, then in her early forties, had been stopping by their house nearly every day for years—running errands, bringing over groceries, sitting and reading to them in the evenings, sometimes just offering quiet company when the aches of old age became too heavy.

Although Cassandra lived modestly and could certainly have used the money, she shook her head with a gentle smile. “Oh, no, Marie. I will not allow you to pay me. I do this because I care for you, not because I want anything in return. Really, don’t worry about it.”

The sisters—Marie, Lillian, June, and Ruth—were inseparable in their old age, just as they’d been in their youth. They laughed often, even as their bodies failed them, and leaned heavily on one another, until the inevitable began to happen.