Without a trace of regret, she walked away from it all: the overpriced condo where she’d toasted her liberty after the divorce; the banana-box full of journals she’d been filling for more than 40 years; the framed portrait of grammy and grandpa, stern and sturdy in their Sunday best, and the snapshot of abuelita, barefoot and smiling on her front porch; the woven placemats she had ordered on Amazon and the blue and gold Pyrex baking dish mom had always used to make that apple cake; the chandelier that hung over the dining set and the stubs of used candles she'd been saving for years, just in case plain white tapers ever became inaccessible to her. She was, after all, her grandmothers’ granddaughter after all.
The dogs made it out just fine, though, and together they watched it all burn from a safe distance.
