Chương 3
I shoved it across the back seat and slammed the door twice before it caught.
When I climbed behind the wheel, Curtis appeared at the upstairs window.
He raised the champagne glass.
A toast.
I started the car.
My hands were shaking too badly to reverse safely, so I sat there while the engine idled.
I counted backward from twenty.
Arthur had taught me that trick during the worst nights of his illness.
“Your brain can’t panic and do arithmetic properly at the same time,” he had said.
He had been wrong about the arithmetic.
At thirteen, I forgot what came next.
I drove anyway.
Three hours later, I was parked beneath the fluorescent lights of a twenty-four-hour grocery store with nowhere to sleep.
My sister lived in Oregon, my closest friend was visiting her mother in Arizona, and the joint checking account Curtis and I had used for household expenses showed a balance of $214.67.
The savings account was no longer visible.
I refreshed the banking app twice.
Then a third time.
Nothing changed.
I called Curtis.
He declined the call.
A text arrived thirty seconds later.
Please communicate through counsel regarding financial matters.
I read it six times.
Then I opened the glove compartment looking for a tissue and found one of Arthur’s peppermint candies instead.
The wrapper was flattened and dusty.
I held it in my palm until my vision blurred.
Arthur had kept those candies everywhere because chemotherapy left a metallic taste in his mouth.
He would suck on one after treatments and complain that they were terrible, then ask me to buy more.
“You’re a difficult man,” I had told him once.
“I’ve spent seventy years perfecting it.”
I put the candy in my mouth.
It tasted stale.
I cried so hard I nearly choked on it.
Three weeks later, an overnight envelope arrived at the rented room I had found above a retired teacher’s garage.
The return address belonged to Samuel Greer, Arthur’s estate attorney.
Inside was a formal notice requiring my presence at a reading and conference concerning Arthur Bennett’s will.
My name appeared on the first page.
Not Mrs. Curtis Bennett.
Not caregiver.
Not witness.
Vanessa Bennett, interested party.
At the bottom, beneath the date and office address, Samuel had added one sentence in blue ink.
Please attend in person, regardless of anything Curtis may have told you.
I read that sentence until the blue ink seemed darker than everything else on the page.
Samuel Greer had never been a warm man.
He was tall, narrow, silver-haired, and so careful with words that conversations with him often felt notarized.
Arthur trusted him completely.
Curtis did not.
That alone was enough to make my stomach tighten.
The meeting was scheduled for Thursday at ten in the morning in Samuel’s downtown office.
I almost did not go.
For three weeks, every practical decision had required energy I did not have.
I had found temporary bookkeeping work for a small flooring company because the owner needed someone to untangle six months of invoices before tax season.
I slept in a narrow room above Mrs. Dillard’s detached garage, where the pipes knocked whenever she ran her washing machine downstairs.
I bought two plates, one saucepan, three towels, and a lamp from a thrift store because the overhead light made the room feel like a storage unit.
My entire life had become a series of small replacements.
New toothbrush.
New phone charger.
New bank account.
New mailing address.
New answer when someone asked where I lived.
The divorce paperwork had arrived through Curtis’s attorney four days after he threw me out.
The speed of it told me the documents had been prepared before Arthur died.
I signed the acknowledgment of service but not the proposed settlement.
Curtis’s attorney called twice.
I let both calls go to voicemail.
On Wednesday night, I laid Arthur’s cardigan across the foot of the bed and stared at it while traffic hummed beyond the garage window.
Mrs. Dillard had invited me downstairs for meatloaf.
I told her I had already eaten.
I had not.
At nine fifteen, she knocked anyway and handed me a plate covered in foil.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” she said.
She was sixty-eight, sharp-eyed, and permanently annoyed by squirrels.
“But people make worse decisions hungry.”
I almost smiled.
“Thank you.”
“Bring the plate back eventually.”
“No rush.”
She paused on the stairs.
“Unless you move out in the night.”
“I won’t.”
“Good, because that’s one of my nice plates.”
After she left, I ate half the meatloaf standing over the sink.
Then I took Samuel’s letter out of my purse again.
Please attend in person, regardless of anything Curtis may have told you.
Arthur had told me once that lawyers used extra words only when they were afraid ordinary words would fail.
I wondered what Samuel was afraid I might believe.
The next morning, I arrived twenty minutes early.
I wore the only suit I had kept from my old job, charcoal gray with a button missing from one sleeve.
The receptionist offered coffee.
I said no, then changed my mind when I saw my hands trembling.
Curtis arrived at nine fifty-eight with a woman I recognized as his attorney, Melissa Ward.
He walked into the waiting room wearing a pale blue suit and the relaxed expression of someone arriving to collect something already purchased.
His eyes found me immediately.
For half a second, the confidence slipped.
Then it returned.
“Vanessa.”
“Curtis.”
Melissa gave me a professional nod.
“You have counsel?”
“No.”
Her mouth tightened slightly.
Curtis glanced at her, then back at me.
“You should’ve brought someone.”
“Why?”
“No reason.”
He sat across from me.
His shoes looked new.
I hated that I noticed.
I hated even more that part of me still knew which cologne he was wearing.
For ten years, I had bought the refill bottle every Christmas.
Samuel’s assistant opened the inner door.
May you like
“Mr. Greer is ready.”
Samuel stood when we entered.
