“For how long?”
He had no answer prepared for that.
Evelyn could hear the old wall clock from the hallway. Her husband used to wind it every Sunday. Since his death, she had done it herself, standing carefully on the small stool he had made.
Her son had asked about replacing the furnace, hiring someone for the grass, putting a bedroom downstairs. She had taken those questions as concern.
Now she wondered which questions had belonged to his plans.
She hated him for making her wonder.
“I need you to leave,” she said.
“Mama, I’m trying to explain.”
“You have explained.”
“If I lose this deposit—”
Evelyn’s chair scraped backward.
He stopped.
She had not raised her voice, but something in her face finally reached him.
“I spent money to keep you alive,” she said. “That does not mean everything I have belongs to you.”
He stood slowly.
At the door, he looked back toward the table.
“Can I take the letter?”
“No.”
He left both pieces beside her elbow.
Evelyn waited until his car was gone before she let herself cry. Even then, she cried quietly, irritated by the wetness on her cheeks, by the way grief could make her feel tired before she had finished being angry.
When her breathing steadied, she called her attorney.
Ruth answered on the third ring.
“He tore it,” Evelyn said.
There was a pause.
“Are you safe?”
“Yes. He’s gone.”
“Then we can take our time.”
Evelyn pressed her fingertips against the two halves.
“I don’t want to make a decision just because I’m hurt.”
“Good,” Ruth said. “We’ll start with what you need.”
They met the following morning at Evelyn’s kitchen table. Ruth brought a replacement letter, a calculator, and a notebook with no documents waiting for a signature.
Together they went through mortgage statements, pension deposits, heating bills, and the repairs Evelyn had been postponing.
The house had value. Keeping it was costing her more than she liked to admit.
Selling could clear the debt and leave enough for a comfortable smaller home, a reserve for care, and ordinary pleasures she had stopped allowing herself.
Evelyn listened without speaking.
Finally she said, “If I move now, he’ll think he was right.”
Ruth set down her pen.
“Would you stay in a house you no longer want to manage just to prove him wrong?”
Evelyn looked toward the stairs.
Her bedroom was upstairs. So was the bathroom with the deep tub she hadn’t used in two years because climbing out frightened her.
