Roy Mercer waited until the last mourner had stepped off the porch before he put his hand around my wrist. His fingers were warm from the crowded house, mine cold despite the August heat. Behind him, the funeral flowers crowded the hallway in white and yellow towers, filling Arthur\u2019s home with the heavy sweetness of lilies. The undertaker\u2019s car had barely disappeared at the end of Hawthorne Lane. Roy leaned close enough that I could smell coffee and the sharp mint he chewed when he was angry. \u201cPack a bag, Helen,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve had nine years here. That\u2019s enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a moment I thought grief had made me misunderstand him. Then his grip tightened. His eyes moved past me toward the staircase, the dining room, the walnut cabinet Arthur had restored by hand. He wasn\u2019t looking at the home where his father had lived. He was inventorying it. \u201cExcuse me?\u201d I asked. Roy lowered his voice. \u201cThe house belongs to Dad\u2019s real family. You were his nurse before you became his wife. Don\u2019t make this ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandra stood several feet behind her brother, still wearing the black dress she had worn to the cemetery. She had removed her shoes and was carrying them in one hand. In the other was a brass key. I recognized the green plastic tag attached to it. My house key. It normally hung on the little hook beside the kitchen door. Sandra noticed me looking and closed her fingers around it. The movement was small, almost casual, and told me more than anything she could have said.<\/p>\n
I looked back at Roy. Nine years of swallowed replies rose in my throat. Nine years of hearing him introduce me as Dad\u2019s caretaker when strangers asked who I was. Nine years of Sandra correcting people who called me their stepmother. Nine years of smiling through holiday dinners while the two of them spoke about Margaret, their mother, as if loving Arthur after her death were an insult to her memory. I could have answered all of it then. Instead, I gently pulled my wrist free.<\/p>\n
\u201cFriday,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Roy frowned. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWait until Friday before you move anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stared at me as if I had spoken in another language.<\/p>\n
Sandra stepped closer. \u201cWhat happens Friday?\u201d<\/p>\n
I bent down and picked a wilted carnation off the floor. Its stem had snapped beneath someone\u2019s shoe. Arthur would have complained about the mess. Then he would have found a jelly jar, trimmed the stem, and tried to save it anyway. I placed the flower on the hall table. \u201cMr. Katz asked us to be at his office at ten.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roy gave a short laugh. \u201cThe will reading?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think Dad left you some money and that means you can stay here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t say that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t have to.\u201d<\/p>\n
His certainty almost made me pity him. Almost.<\/p>\n
Sandra crossed her arms. \u201cWe already know what Dad\u2019s will says.\u201d<\/p>\n
That caught my attention. \u201cDo you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe family has had a copy for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat year?\u201d<\/p>\n
She hesitated just long enough.<\/p>\n
Roy answered for her. \u201cNineteen ninety-eight.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned toward him. Arthur had told me about that will exactly once, years before we married. Margaret was still alive when it had been drafted. Roy and Sandra had been younger, Arthur had still owned the manufacturing company, and Hawthorne Lane had been worth less than half its current value. I had never asked what the document said. I had never needed to. But hearing Roy refer to it now confirmed something Arthur had quietly suspected.<\/p>\n
Roy mistook my silence for defeat. \u201cDad was sick for a long time. Anything he supposedly signed recently will be challenged.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen challenge it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer surprised all three of us.<\/p>\n
Sandra\u2019s expression hardened. \u201cYou think this is funny?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur mother built this family.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis house was hers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said quietly. \u201cIt was Arthur\u2019s before he married Margaret. But she made it a home, and he never forgot that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandra flinched. She disliked it when I knew facts about her parents that did not come from her. Arthur and Margaret had lived at Hawthorne Lane for thirty-four years. There were photographs of her in almost every room. I had never taken them down. I had never moved her china from the cabinet or replaced the lilacs she had planted along the side fence. Arthur had loved her for forty-one years. Loving me afterward had not erased one day of that.<\/p>\n
Roy rubbed his thumb over the face of his watch. \u201cA realtor is coming next week.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought I had misheard him again. \u201cA realtor?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo assess the property.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cArthur has been dead for six hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s better to deal with things promptly.\u201d<\/p>\n
From the kitchen came the quiet clink of silver. I turned my head.<\/p>\n
Sandra\u2019s daughter Melissa stood in the doorway, twenty-six years old and pale from crying. She was holding two coffee cups, one in each hand. Her eyes moved from her mother to me. \u201cGrandpa hated realtors,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Nobody answered.<\/p>\n
Melissa handed me one cup. \u201cHe said they always used the word potential when they meant they wanted to tear something down.\u201d<\/p>\n
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. It hurt. Arthur had said exactly that. He had said it the previous spring when a neighbor sold his bungalow to a developer. He had stood at the window in his robe, oxygen tube beneath his nose, and complained for ten straight minutes about open-concept kitchens.<\/p>\n
Roy looked irritated. \u201cMelissa, this is adult business.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m twenty-six.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandra took the other cup from her daughter and set it down without drinking. \u201cWe are discussing Grandpa\u2019s estate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Melissa\u2019s gaze dropped to the key in her mother\u2019s hand. \u201cIs that Helen\u2019s?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandra looked down as if she had forgotten she was holding it.<\/p>\n
I saved her from answering. \u201cYour mother picked it up for safekeeping.\u201d<\/p>\n
Melissa looked at me. She knew I was lying.<\/p>\n
So did Sandra.<\/p>\n
Roy exhaled loudly. \u201cThis is exactly what I didn\u2019t want. Drama.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nearly asked which part he considered dramatic: taking my key, arranging a realtor before Arthur had been buried a full day, or ordering his father\u2019s widow to pack a suitcase beside the funeral flowers. Instead, I looked at the clock over the mantel.<\/p>\n
Six fourteen.<\/p>\n
Twenty-two months earlier, at almost that same time of evening, Arthur had been sitting in his hospice bed pretending to sleep while his children tried to put a pen between his fingers.<\/p>\n
That was where Friday had really begun.<\/p>\n
The memory arrived with terrible clarity. The hospice room had smelled faintly of lemon disinfectant and chicken broth. Rain tapped the window. Arthur\u2019s cancer had returned aggressively that winter, and the doctors had finally stopped pretending another round of treatment might buy meaningful time. He had been admitted for symptom management after a bad week at home. Roy and Sandra arrived together that night, which was unusual enough to make me notice.<\/p>\n
Sandra carried a leather folder.<\/p>\n
Roy carried a pen.<\/p>\n
I was sitting beside Arthur\u2019s bed reading a mystery novel neither of us cared about. His eyelids were half closed, and the morphine had softened the deep lines around his mouth. Sandra kissed his forehead, then looked at me. \u201cHelen, you should eat something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve been here all day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo has your father.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her smile held. \u201cWe can sit with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arthur\u2019s fingers shifted beneath the blanket.<\/p>\n
It was a signal so small nobody else would have noticed. I had been a nurse for thirty-two years. More importantly, I had been Arthur\u2019s wife for nine. I knew the difference between an involuntary twitch and a warning.<\/p>\n
Still, I stood.<\/p>\n
Roy gave me an encouraging smile that looked borrowed. \u201cTake twenty minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arthur kept his eyes closed.<\/p>\n
I leaned down as if to straighten his blanket. \u201cTea?\u201d<\/p>\n
His index finger moved once against the sheet.<\/p>\n
Yes.<\/p>\n
I went downstairs.<\/p>\n
I did not know then that Arthur wanted me gone because he needed to hear what his children would say when they believed he could not.<\/p>\n
The cafeteria was closing. I bought tea from a vending machine and stood near the elevator while it filled the paper cup with water that tasted faintly of metal. I remember being irritated because I had forgotten my wallet upstairs and had to search the bottom of my purse for coins. Fourteen minutes passed.<\/p>\n
When I returned, Sandra was sliding papers back into her folder.<\/p>\n
Roy was putting the cap on his pen.<\/p>\n
Arthur\u2019s hand lay palm-up on the blanket.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing,\u201d Sandra said too quickly.<\/p>\n
Arthur did not open his eyes.<\/p>\n
Roy stood. \u201cHe drifted off.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was already drifting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, more.\u201d<\/p>\n
I set the tea down. On Arthur\u2019s blanket, near his right thigh, I saw a small blue ink mark. Not large. Barely more than a line. I looked at the pen in Roy\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n
Roy slipped it into his pocket.<\/p>\n
Sandra kissed Arthur again. \u201cWe\u2019ll come tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither of them looked at me as they left.<\/p>\n
I waited until their footsteps disappeared down the corridor. Then I closed the door.<\/p>\n
Arthur opened one eye.<\/p>\n
There was the man I knew.<\/p>\n
Tired. Furious. Entirely awake.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did they do?\u201d<\/p>\n
His voice was rough. \u201cFirst Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTake me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDowntown.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cArthur, what happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
He swallowed, winced, and looked toward the door. \u201cNot here.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was all he would say.<\/p>\n
Three days later he came home from hospice. On the first Tuesday of the following month, I helped him into our car. He wore his brown wool coat although the afternoon was mild, and he insisted on carrying the cane he hated using. When I asked where we were going, he handed me a folded piece of paper.<\/p>\n
Arthur Katz, Attorney at Law.<\/p>\n
There was an address beneath it.<\/p>\n
I looked at him. \u201cYou have an attorney named Arthur?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was Arthur before I met him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat seems inconvenient.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has caused suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even sick, he could still make me laugh when I least wanted to.<\/p>\n
I started the engine. \u201cWhat do I tell Roy and Sandra when they ask where you went?\u201d<\/p>\n
Arthur watched the bare maple branches through the windshield.<\/p>\n
Then he said, \u201cPhysical therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t have physical therapy today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t know that.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned toward him.<\/p>\n
His mouth pulled into the faintest smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cArthur.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHelen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re asking me to lie.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m asking you not to provide unnecessary information.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a lawyer\u2019s definition of lying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen apparently I\u2019m already improving.\u201d<\/p>\n
I drove him downtown.<\/p>\n
Mr. Katz\u2019s office occupied the ground floor of a narrow brick building between a tax service and an old bakery. There was no sign large enough to notice from the street, only a brass plaque beside a blue door. Arthur placed his hand on mine before I helped him out of the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re staying in the waiting room.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI assumed so.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how long I\u2019m inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
I studied him. \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHousekeeping.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds ominous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s paperwork.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cArthur.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me then, really looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease.\u201d<\/p>\n
That ended the argument.<\/p>\n
Inside, the office smelled of coffee, old paper, and radiator heat. Mr. Katz was short, silver-haired, and so neat that even his eyebrows seemed organized. He greeted Arthur without surprise, shook my hand, and showed me to a chair beside a table stacked with magazines.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou may be here a while, Mrs. Mercer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHelen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHelen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arthur followed him through a door.<\/p>\n
I sat alone for one hour and thirty-seven minutes.<\/p>\n
When Arthur finally came out, he looked exhausted. He also looked lighter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cHousekeeping.\u201d<\/p>\n
I narrowed my eyes.<\/p>\n
He patted my knee.<\/p>\n
On the drive home he fell asleep before we reached the second traffic light.<\/p>\n
That night, while putting his coat away, I found a small white receipt tucked in the pocket.<\/p>\n
Not from Mr. Katz.<\/p>\n
From a copying service.<\/p>\n
Twenty-three pages.<\/p>\n
I put it back exactly where I found it.<\/p>\n
I did not know what he had copied.<\/p>\n
I did not know that the visit would become the first of twenty-two.<\/p>\n
And I did not know that while Arthur was building his quiet record downtown, I would soon begin keeping one of my own.<\/p>\n
Roy Mercer waited until the last mourner had stepped off the porch before he put his hand around my wrist. His fingers were warm from the crowded house, mine cold … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feel-one-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11236,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11188\/revisions\/11236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelonestory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}