Chương 4
Aunt Caroline reached for my wrist.
“Don’t answer him.”
Dad saw that too.
His face tightened.
“Of course.”
Caroline stood.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means Mom spent years turning everybody against me.”
“You did a fair amount of the work yourself.”
A few people shifted uncomfortably.
Pastor Daniel raised one hand.
“Please.”
For once, Dad obeyed.
I sat again.
My legs felt unreliable.
Pastor Daniel resumed.
“I am leaving Emily the house because she never treated it as something waiting to become hers.”
Heat climbed into my face.
“I am also leaving her responsibility for deciding what happens next.”
Dad’s gaze moved toward me.
That sentence frightened me more than the inheritance.
“The records Margaret holds may give Emily grounds to recover money from John’s share of my estate or to take further action if necessary.”
Dad leaned forward.
“What records?”
Pastor Daniel did not look at him.
My pulse thudded in my ears.
“She has already carried responsibilities that belonged to older people who found it convenient to call her capable.”
My mother flinched.
So did I.
I saw the hospital again for one second.
The vending machine glowing beside the waiting-room doors.
My unanswered calls.
Dad’s three words on my screen.
Keep us posted.
“I am sorry for my part in teaching her that love means staying when everyone else leaves.”
My eyes blurred.
I looked down at my hands.
Grandma’s brown cardigan was folded over my lap.
I had brought it because I could not decide what else to do with it.
“I hope she learns sooner than I did that being needed and being loved are not the same thing.”
Pastor Daniel stopped.
The church remained silent.
Then he read the final paragraph.
“John, if you are angry, be angry.”
Dad stared at the floor.
“But do not tell yourself this happened because Emily manipulated me.”
His jaw moved.
“It happened because I finally stopped lying to myself about you.”
My mother covered her mouth.
“And Emily, do not punish him for me.”
That made me look up.
“Do not rescue him either.”
The pages trembled slightly in Pastor Daniel’s hands.
“That is all.”
Nobody knew what to do next.
The organist looked toward Pastor Daniel.
Pastor Daniel looked at the organist.
Somewhere near the back, a child whispered, “Are we done?”
His mother shushed him too loudly.
Under any other circumstances, Grandma would have found it hilarious.
Pastor Daniel folded the letter.
Dad stood.
This time nobody stopped him.
He walked down the center aisle without looking left or right.
My mother remained seated.
At the church doors, Dad turned.
For a moment I thought he was coming back.
Instead, he looked directly at me.
There was no grief in his face now.
Only calculation.
Then he left.
The funeral continued because funerals do.
We sang another hymn.
Pastor Daniel said a prayer.
Six men carried Grandma’s casket toward the waiting hearse while people formed a crooked line outside beneath a bright, indifferent afternoon.
I shook hands I did not remember shaking.
People hugged me.
Some said they were sorry.
Some told me Grandma had been special.
Three people mentioned the letter and immediately apologized for mentioning it.
Mrs. Alvarez pressed both of my hands between hers.
“She loved you,” she said.
“I know.”
“She was also stubborn as a goat.”
A laugh escaped me.
Mrs. Alvarez nodded approvingly.
“Good.”
My mother came out last.
She stood at the top of the church steps holding her purse against her stomach.
Dad was nowhere in sight.
“Did he leave you?” I asked.
“He took the car.”
Of course he had.
I almost said it.
Instead, I asked, “Do you need a ride?”
Mom looked at me for several seconds.
“I don’t know what I need.”
It was the most truthful thing she had said all week.
Aunt Caroline took her home.
I rode to the cemetery with Pastor Daniel because my car was blocked behind the funeral procession and solving that tiny problem seemed beyond me.
He drove an old Subaru that smelled faintly of coffee and dog hair.
For the first five minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then I asked, “Did she hate him?”
Pastor Daniel kept his eyes on the road.
“No.”
I watched houses pass beyond the window.
“That would be easier.”
“For whom?”
I looked at him.
He shrugged.
“Ruth loved your father.”
“That letter didn’t sound loving.”
“Love and approval aren’t synonyms.”
I rubbed my thumb against a loose thread on Grandma’s cardigan.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Maybe she was trying not to make you choose before she had to.”
“But she made me choose after she died.”
“Yes.”
His answer irritated me.
“You could at least pretend that was wise.”
“I liked Ruth too much to pretend she was wise all the time.”
That almost made me smile.
At the cemetery, Dad was waiting beside the grave.
I did not know how he had gotten there before us.
He stood apart from everyone else with his hands in his coat pockets.
Mom arrived with Caroline and did not go to him.
The burial was short.
Wind lifted the edges of Pastor Daniel’s pages.
A lawn mower droned somewhere beyond the row of maples.
When it ended, people drifted back toward their cars in small groups.
I stayed.
Dad stayed too.
The cemetery workers waited at a respectful distance beside their equipment.
Finally Dad walked toward me.
“We need to talk.”
“Not here.”
“Then where?”
“Not today.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You don’t get to avoid this.”
Something about that sentence almost amazed me.
I looked at Grandma’s casket suspended above the open grave.
“You avoided a hospital.”
His mouth tightened.
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
I looked back at him.
“It isn’t.”
He stepped closer.
“Whatever Mom told that pastor, there are things you don’t understand.”
“I’m sure there are.”
“The house wasn’t stolen.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
May you like
“She agreed to help.”
“Then Margaret Sloan can explain it.”
