the last leaf on maple street

Edith Miller sat by the large bay window in her living room, her hands cradling a warm cup of tea. Outside, the branches of the great maple tree stretched toward the sky like a skeletal hand, each twig trembling in the wind. It was late autumn, and nearly all the leaves had fallen, leaving behind bare limbs that swayed gently in the cold November breeze. But one leaf remained, clinging to its branch with a kind of determined fragility that caught Edith’s eye. It was a lone flash of yellow in a sea of dull gray. For years, that tree had been her…