“You’ll spill it.”
“Everything about this bothers me,” she retorted.
Garrett cleared his throat from the doorway.
“Margaret. That’s enough.”
She gave him a small, tight smile and didn’t apologize. Her brother wouldn’t even meet my eyes.
***
The comments kept coming week after week.
A remark about my dress being “a bit much for a woman your age.” A question about whether I’d “ever worked a real job.” Once, Margaret asked, right at the dinner table, what exactly I thought I’d be inheriting.
The comments kept coming.
“Margaret,” Garrett said quietly, “Eleanor isn’t a topic of conversation. She’s my wife.”
“She’s your mistake!”
My husband set his fork down. I’d never seen his jaw set that way.
“You will NOT speak to her like that in my house!”
***
Later, in the hallway, I heard Margaret hiss something about “Mom’s memory” and “that paperwork you promised.” Garrett’s voice came back low and steady, but I couldn’t catch the words. I went upstairs and pretended I hadn’t heard a thing.
“She’s your mistake!”
***
A few times that month, I noticed Garrett on the phone in his study, the door half-closed, talking to someone named Whitfield. He had papers on the desk and a leather folder he tucked away when I walked in.
“Just tidying up some old paperwork,” he told me. “Nothing for you to fret about.”
“I’m not fretting. I’m nosy.”
He laughed and pulled me into his lap as if we were 20 again!
“Eleanor, they’re things I put in place a long time ago. I’m only making sure every line is airtight. You’ll always be safe, no matter what those two think of me.”
I noticed Garrett on the phone.
I didn’t ask what he meant. I should have.
But the months passed in a kind of warm hush, winter into a tentative spring, and I let myself believe the storm outside our bedroom door wouldn’t ever come in.
***
It happened on a Tuesday.
Garrett poured his coffee, reached for the paper, and then his hand went to his chest. He looked at me with such surprise, as if he’d just remembered something important. And then he was gone, just like that.
A heart attack.
I didn’t ask what he meant.
***
At the cemetery, the wind cut straight through the black dress I wore.
Margaret stood across the open grave, dry-eyed, watching me as if I were a stain on the linen.
***
We hadn’t been back at the house for 10 minutes when my DIL found me in the front room, a sheaf of stapled papers in her hand.
“Get out,” she said, shaking the pages at me. “The house has been in our family trust since before you ever walked through that door. Daddy signed it. Your name isn’t on a single line. You’ve embarrassed our mother’s memory long enough!”
