Part 3
Rebecca arrived at Grace Church shortly after nine the next morning.
Jonah watched from his office as she parked beside the parish hall but did not immediately get out. She remained behind the steering wheel with her forehead lowered, both hands gripping it at ten and two as though she were driving through weather no one else could see.
When she finally entered, she carried a leather tote, a garment bag, and a folder divided by colored tabs.
She was forty-six, with Helen’s brown eyes and her habit of assessing a room before speaking. Her black coat was sharply tailored, though one side of the collar had folded inward. Grief had not made her disorganized. It had made organization the only surface she trusted.
“Reverend Hale?”
“Jonah is fine.”
“Thank you for what you did yesterday.”
He nearly told her he should have done it sooner. Instead, he took the garment bag and led her into the office.
Juniper lay on Helen’s blue blanket beneath the window. Jonah had brought her to the small rectory behind the church overnight, but the cat had paced until dawn, crying whenever he closed a door between them. She had followed him back to the office that morning and settled where she could see the parking lot.
At the sound of Rebecca’s voice, Juniper raised her head.
The bell on her collar clicked once.
Rebecca stopped inside the doorway.
“I fed her,” Jonah said. “She drank some water. The veterinarian will see her this afternoon.”
“That’s good.”
Juniper stood and stretched, but she did not approach. Rebecca’s gaze moved from the cat to the blue blanket and then away.
“I need to choose clothes for the funeral home,” she said. “And find the insurance documents. Mom probably had seven copies.”
“Probably alphabetized.”
Rebecca gave a startled half laugh. It disappeared quickly, but for a moment she looked less defended.
At Oakview Commons, Tasha let them into Helen’s apartment and offered coffee neither accepted. The chair by the window was empty now. The mug, book, and reading glasses remained where they had been, but without Helen the room seemed arranged around a missing center.
Rebecca stood in the entryway for nearly a minute.
Then she removed her coat, opened the folder, and began working.
She found the insurance policy in a labeled accordion file, the cemetery deed inside a fireproof box, and a list of funeral preferences clipped to the first page of Helen’s will. There were notes about hymns, flowers, and which relatives should not be seated beside one another.
“Of course,” Rebecca murmured. “She planned crowd control for her own funeral.”
Jonah stayed near the kitchen, giving her room without leaving her alone.
Rebecca moved efficiently until she opened the cabinet beside the refrigerator.
Inside were fourteen cans of salmon cat food, stacked in two rows. A note had been taped above them.
Half a can morning and evening. Add a spoonful of warm water when the weather turns cold.
Rebecca read it twice.
“She remembered this,” she said.
Jonah did not answer.
“She knew exactly how much warm water the cat needed, but she couldn’t tell me she was getting weaker.”
“She may have thought she was sparing you.”
“That was her favorite form of control.”
The bitterness in Rebecca’s voice was sharp, but not casual. It had been carried a long time.
“She refused to move to Columbus,” Rebecca continued. “I found three good places within fifteen minutes of me. I offered to handle the sale, the packing, all of it. She said Millbrook was home.”
“It was.”
“So was I.”
Jonah looked at her.
Rebecca closed the cabinet harder than she intended. “Every conversation became an argument about whether I was trying to take her life away. I wasn’t. I was trying to keep her alive.”
“Helen knew you loved her.”
“She knew I would show up for emergencies. That’s not the same as letting someone be part of your life.”
The cat carrier stood near the door with Juniper inside. Jonah had brought her because she had refused food when left at the rectory and because the veterinarian’s appointment was later that afternoon. Juniper shifted against the blue blanket, watching Rebecca through the mesh.
“Could you turn that carrier around?” Rebecca asked.
Jonah turned it toward the window.
They entered Helen’s bedroom together. Rebecca chose a navy dress and the pearl earrings her father had given Helen on their thirtieth anniversary. She handled each item carefully until a shoebox fell from the top shelf and struck the floor.
Photographs scattered across the carpet.
Rebecca knelt.
There were class pictures, birthday cards, theater programs, and handmade gifts from her childhood. A purple construction-paper flower had been flattened beneath tissue paper. On its stem, in a child’s handwriting, were the words For Mommy because she always comes back.
Rebecca touched the edge of it.
“She kept this?”
Jonah crouched several feet away. “It appears she kept everything.”
At the bottom of the box was a sealed envelope bearing Rebecca’s name. Below it, Helen had written a second line.
For when one of us runs out of time.
Rebecca carried it to the kitchen table but did not open it. Her hand remained on the envelope while the clock above the stove measured the silence.
“You can read it later,” Jonah said.
“I’ve been doing everything later.”
She opened the flap.
The letter was four pages long. Rebecca read the first paragraph standing, then pulled out a chair and sat. Her face changed before any tears came. Anger loosened first, followed by something more frightened.
After a minute, she read the opening sentence aloud.
“Becca, by the time you see this, you may have decided that Juniper was more faithful to me than you were.”
Her voice caught. She looked toward the carrier. The letter continued in Helen’s careful handwriting. – “That will be a lie,” Rebecca whispered. “Please don’t build the rest of your life around it…
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