The New Yorker Fiction:

The five women have grown old coming together, every other month or so for the last thirty or more years, around one another’s table.

By Lore Segal

It mattered that Lotte’s apartment was commodious. Lotte liked to boast that when she lay in bed and looked past the two closest water towers, past the architectural follies and oddities few people notice on Manhattan’s rooftops, she saw all the way to the Empire State Building. On the velvet sofa in Lotte’s living room, from which she could observe the Hudson River traffic as far as the George Washington Bridge, the caregiver sat watching television.

“Get rid of her,” Lotte said.

Samson dropped his voice, as if this might make his mother lower hers. “As soon as we find you a replacement.”

“And I’ll get rid of her,” Lotte said.

Sam said, “We’ll go on interviewing till we find you the right one.”

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