I drove home.
Catherine came with me.
Neither of us wanted the other alone.
Our house still smelled like funeral flowers.
Zane's jacket hung over the dining chair.
His reading glasses sat beside the recliner.
Grief had already turned ordinary objects into traps.
Now every object asked another question.
What else had he known while wearing that jacket?
How many nights had he looked at Emily across this table knowing who gave birth to her?
I went to our bedroom and opened his desk.
I had never searched my husband's things.
Not once in thirty-four years.
That fact now felt less romantic than foolish.
The first drawer held bills.
Pens.
A pocketknife.
Second:
tax records.
Third:
a small brass key taped beneath the wood.
Catherine noticed.
“What does it open?”
I knew.
A fireproof document box in the garage.
Zane told me it contained old insurance files.
I brought it inside.
