Yesterday my uncle found great aunt Sonia, age 99, dead on her kitchen floor. It was my mother's brother's weekly routine to check on their spinster aunt. Aunt Sonia had lived alone for her entire life--to the very end, as it happened. She kept herself impeccably. Her makeup and its application was old, not cakey so much as thick and iridescent. She used to be a cosmetologist. On her head were platinum curls. She smelled of perfume dabbed on from the same bottle, one finger at a time, over fifty years. She had wattles under her chin and both arms. She was not soft, though; there was venom and pride in all her angles, all her words. My uncle arrived at the house on Sunday and considered going straight to the garage to give her big, blue boat of an unused car a start, as was his custom. Instead, he went to the back door. He let himself in. He walked into the kitchen, where she was lifeless in a nightgown. He told my mother later that it was a good thing he hadn't gone to star...