Part 3
I pressed my free hand against the corridor wall while she explained the stroke. He was alive. They were monitoring him, and my number was still the one listed for notification.
I wrote the room number on the back of a meeting agenda. Vivian had known for hours. When I asked the nurse whether his wife was there, she said yes.
I went to him, and in the following weeks I took whatever access I could get. By the first Wednesday in October, he was home again, sitting at the dinner table while Vivian talked about remodeling.
The next Wednesday, October 9, the hospital called at 4:23. I’d been sent out of town to review records for a client and was nearly three hours away.
The nurse gave her name as Alicia. She asked whether I was somewhere I could talk, then told me Dad had suffered another cardiac crisis. They hadn’t been able to revive him. The recorded time was 4:19.
On my desk, somebody else’s deposit slips were stacked in date order. I stared at the top one while she offered to stay on the line.
“I’m coming back,” I told her. “I’ll be there this evening.”
I thanked her because I couldn’t think of anything else to do for the person who had told me.
During the drive, I kept both hands on the wheel. I didn’t put on music. At a rest stop, I bought gasoline and stood beside the pump without remembering which side of the car I’d parked on.
I thought of Dad’s spoon at dinner. Then of his hand in the kitchen window six weeks before he died, held up where Vivian couldn’t keep me from seeing it.
By the time I reached the house, several cars were parked along the curb. Light spilled from the dining room onto the lawn. Inside, Vivian was trimming the stems of cream-colored flowers and placing them in a vase.
Her hair was pinned back. She’d cleared the counter.
I entered through the unlocked side door and spoke to a cousin whose name I barely registered. Upstairs, the small room still held the yoga mat, diffuser, and speaker. There was nowhere to put my bag except the floor.
I sat down beside it. The mat smelled faintly of rubber. I used to leave my shoes in that corner before school.
Vivian came upstairs carrying an empty mug.
“You didn’t think you were staying, did you?”
I looked up. She glanced at my bag, then at the mat beneath it, as though I’d left something in the wrong room again.
“Thomas is gone. The house is mine, and I need you to leave.”
I put the laptop in its sleeve. The zipper caught on the lining, and I worked it free while she watched.
“You could book a room somewhere,” she added. “There are people here helping me.”
I stood with the bag in my hand. On the staircase, Natalie moved up one step to let me pass. She held her phone against her sweater. Her lips parted, but nothing came out.
Downstairs, I saw the locksmith’s packaging and the fresh keys on the hall table. Vivian told me again that I needed to make other arrangements. I went past her and out.
At the Crossroads Motor Inn, four miles away, I pulled into a space beside a vending machine and left the engine running. A man crossed the lot carrying an ice bucket. I watched him go inside, then watched the door settle shut.
After twenty minutes, I went to the desk and booked five nights.
The keys to the commercial building were still in my coat. While the clerk copied my license, I rolled one between my fingers. Vivian hadn’t asked where I would go.
The funeral was Saturday, at the little church on Ash Street. Dad went there at Christmas and Easter, always taking the same aisle seat. One amber pane in the front window had been cracked since I was a child; the repair tape was still visible if you knew where to look.
Vivian had arranged the printed program. Beneath Dad’s name came a line about his devoted wife. I read it while standing near the entrance, then folded the paper along its original crease.
Three upholstered chairs had been set aside at the front. Vivian and Natalie occupied two. Vivian’s coat and handbag filled the third.
She saw me come down the aisle. Her hand stayed on the bag’s strap.
I took a seat in the third row beside a woman I didn’t know. When I leaned back, the chair gave a small wooden click. Flowers stood near the lectern, and somebody had opened a side window because the room was too warm.
Judith arrived just before the service. She passed the front chairs without slowing, slid into the place beside me, and took my hand. Her thumb moved once across my knuckles.
“Your dad didn’t leave the important things unfinished,” she whispered. “Hold on to that.”
I watched the pastor arrange his pages. Judith kept my hand until he began.
Two neighbors spoke after him. One remembered Dad helping him work through a mortgage problem. Another said Thomas had never been much for speeches but could be counted on when something needed doing.
I lowered my eyes to the program and thought of him leaving the kitchen with his work gloves, letting Vivian’s explanation stand.
Outside, Mr. Nolan approached with a paper cup from the fellowship hall. He’d known our family for years.
“I expected to see you up front,” he said.
“Those seats seemed to be spoken for.”
He looked toward Vivian. She was receiving condolences beside the waiting car, touching each person’s arm as they spoke. Mr. Nolan glanced back at me and lowered his cup.
He didn’t make me explain further.
Before the family cars left, Vivian stood on the steps with Natalie close beside her.
“Thomas wanted us secure in our home,” she announced. “Natalie and I will be staying there. That’s settled.”
She didn’t mention the appointment Raymond Foster, Dad’s estate attorney, had scheduled for Thursday. He’d been named to settle the estate and had asked us all to attend a conference about the will and the assets. Vivian had already begun behaving as though it was a formality.
The nights leading up to the funeral had been almost sleepless. The motel sign lit the curtains blue, and every passing truck made the glass tremble.
The room cost fifty-four dollars a night. One corner of the shower curtain had darkened, and the mattress dipped whenever I shifted my knees. I’d picked the place because it was near the house, open, and uncomplicated. At three in the morning, I lay awake picturing Dad’s hand in the window.
On Friday, the day before the funeral and my second morning at the motel, I’d called Simon Avery, my attorney. He was forty-six and specialized in estates and asset protection. His tie was never quite centered.
I’d retained him two years earlier, when Dad became ill and Vivian’s control began reaching beyond the household budget.
“Would you check the files?” I asked. “All of them. I need to know there’s nothing outstanding.”
I heard him open something on his desk.
“Give me a minute, Elise. I’ll go through each holding with you.”
Simon started with the building. Full ownership was in my name, with the individual transfers documented from 2008 through 2018. The records agreed with the tax filings, and nothing remained for Dad’s estate to convey.
He moved to the investments, the smaller property interests, and the cash reserve. An accountant’s current valuation put the combined total at approximately twenty-eight million dollars…
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