Chương 3
Eulalia studied her.
“You sound angry with a dead man.”
“I am angry with a dead man.”
“You don’t get to be.”
Corinne looked up.
The look between them lasted a long time.
Eulalia hated the childishness of what she had said.
She hated even more that she meant it.
Corinne had been Neftalí’s wife for nine years. She had slept beside him, fought with him, probably known which noises he made when he was sick and which shirts he wore twice before washing. Eulalia knew those things about the boy he had been and some of them about the man, but not all.
Death had turned him into territory.
Both women had spent more than a month defending their borders.
Corinne broke eye contact first.
“You should sit down before you fall.”
This time Eulalia did.
The chair seemed farther away than it was.
She lowered herself carefully, pressing one hand against her ribs. The hospital had called them bruised, not broken. Breathing still felt like negotiating with a landlord.
Corinne watched.
She did not offer to help again.
For once, Eulalia appreciated her restraint.
She read the remaining page in silence before speaking.
Neftalí wrote that six months before his death he had decided to restore Eulalia’s ownership interest. He had contacted the attorney who had handled the original deed after Eulalia’s husband died. He had gathered records of the business loans. He had also discovered that Corinne had contacted a real-estate agent about selling the family home if he died.
Eulalia looked at her.
“You planned this six months ago.”
Corinne stared back.
“Yes.”
“While he was alive.”
“Yes.”
“While he was sick.”
“Yes.”
Each answer struck with less force than the one before it.
Eulalia looked down.
The handwriting deteriorated near the bottom of the page. Neftalí had been tired when he wrote it. Several words leaned into each other, and one sentence had been restarted.
He had written:
Corinne says the house is the only way out if I die. She may be right about the money. She is wrong about Mom.
If she sends you to the cabin, look under the loose board beside the old stove.
You will know then that I failed to stop the thing I helped start.
I am sorry.
Don’t protect my name from what I did.
Please don’t let loving me make you stupid twice.
Eulalia folded the letter.
She could almost hear him saying that last line.
Not because he had said it before.
Because only Neftalí would apologize and insult her in the same breath.
A laugh escaped her.
It startled both women.
Then the laugh folded into something close to a sob, and Eulalia pressed the tissue to her mouth until it passed.
Corinne looked away.
“He wrote that?”
“Yes.”
“The part about being stupid?”
“Yes.”
Corinne gave a small, unwilling exhale through her nose.
“He would.”
That nearly made Eulalia laugh again.
She hated Corinne for sharing the joke.
For a few seconds they were both looking at the same dead man, not at each other.
Then the seconds ended.
Eulalia set the folded letter beside the box.
“How much do you owe?”
Corinne’s expression changed.
“What?”
“The house. The restaurants. Whatever else you two hid. How much?”
“I don’t know the exact number tonight.”
“You know close.”
“Eulalia—”
“How much?”
Corinne rose, walked to the sideboard, then returned without taking anything from it. She had always moved when cornered. Neftalí used to tease her about reorganizing kitchen drawers during arguments.
“About six hundred and eighty thousand.”
Eulalia stared at her.
Corinne continued before she could speak.
“Some is secured. Some isn’t. The business has assets. There’s insurance. The restaurant lease can be assigned. The house would cover most of what remains if it sells near the list price.”
“The list price.”
“One point four.”
Eulalia glanced around the dining room.
The chandelier her husband had complained was too expensive.
The dent in the baseboard from the year Neftalí got roller skates.
A faint rectangle on the wall where a painting had already been removed for staging.
One point four million dollars.
She wondered what number a stranger would put on the place where she had held her husband’s hand during his last afternoon.
“How much would be left for me?”
Corinne said nothing.
“How much?”
“If the deed stands?”
“Yes.”
“Legally, the house is part of Neftalí’s estate.”
“That is not an answer.”
“You’re a beneficiary of part of the estate.”
“Part.”
“Yes.”
“Not the house.”
“No.”
Eulalia nodded.
Corinne’s eyes moved toward the letter.
“What are you going to do with that?”
There it was.
Not What are you going to do?
What are you going to do with that?
Eulalia put her hand over the paper.
“I haven’t decided.”
“You came here knowing exactly what you wanted.”
“I came here because you locked me out.”
“I changed the locks after you left because the house was being shown.”
“I did not leave. You drove me into the mountains with three suitcases.”
“I offered you a hotel.”
“For five nights.”
“Until we found something.”
“You found something. The cabin.”
“You used to love that cabin.”
“When it had heat.”
Corinne’s shoulders dropped.
“I didn’t know the power was off.”
Eulalia watched her.
It was possible.
That bothered her.
She wanted every bad thing arranged neatly in Corinne’s column. The locked house. The packed clothes. The rotted floor. Her swollen face. The forged—or tricked—deed. The debt. The letter.
But a broken electrical account did not become attempted murder because Eulalia needed the arithmetic to be clean.
“You still sent me there.”
“Yes.”
“Because you wanted this house empty.”
“Yes.”
“For the sale.”
“Yes.”
“And if I said no?”
“You did say no.”
“What would you have done?”
Corinne pressed her palms flat on the table.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s convenient.”
“No. It’s true.”
Eulalia waited.
May you like
Corinne looked down at her gown as if noticing it for the first time.
“The fundraiser was tonight.”
