Chương 11
“My sister loved apples.”
Claire stared at her.
Then laughed too.
It hurt.
That spring, Teresa Bell’s remains were moved to a cemetery outside Pittsburgh beside her parents.
The Ashford family paid the expenses anonymously at Joanne’s request.
Eleanor Ashford’s grave was opened and left empty.
Robert stood beside it on a cold March morning.
Claire stood several feet away.
Julian had come but remained near the car.
The old stone read:
ELEANOR GRACE ASHFORD
1965–1996
BELOVED DAUGHTER AND SISTER
Robert looked at the dates.
“We had a funeral.”
“I know.”
“I gave a eulogy.”
Claire put her hands into her coat pockets.
“What did you say?”
“I don’t remember most of it.”
“That’s probably normal.”
“I said she was fearless.”
Claire looked at him.
“She wasn’t.”
“No.”
“She was scared of a lot.”
Robert nodded.
“Apparently.”
“She hated thunderstorms.”
“I know.”
Claire turned.
“You knew that?”
“When she was six she slept under my desk during a storm because she thought the desk was military equipment and therefore lightning-proof.”
Claire smiled.
“That is terrible science.”
“She was six.”
“My mother still unplugged every appliance during storms.”
Robert laughed.
The empty grave remained between them.
Finally he said, “What should we do with the stone?”
Claire looked at Eleanor’s name.
“Nothing yet.”
He nodded.
For once, he did not ask when yet would become now.
Martin Keene eventually pleaded guilty to several charges connected to financial fraud and his recent efforts to interfere with the investigation. Other allegations remained unresolved or were never charged.
Claire attended one hearing.
She skipped the rest.
She learned that justice, when it arrived through institutions, involved a surprising amount of waiting in hallways.
Television made it look cleaner.
The Ashford trust entered years of civil litigation.
Lawyers sent Claire documents thick enough to stop doors.
One informed her that, as Eleanor’s biological daughter, she might have claims involving property distributions made after Eleanor was declared dead.
Claire placed the letter in a kitchen drawer and ignored it for eleven days.
Then she called Julian.
“If I pursue this, does it hurt you?”
“Yes.”
She appreciated the answer.
“How much?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Do you want me not to?”
A pause.
“No.”
“That was suspiciously noble.”
“I’m trying to grow.”
“Stop.”
“I knew you’d hate it.”
Claire sat on the kitchen counter.
“What do you actually think?”
Julian breathed out.
“I think some of what I have came through decisions made after Eleanor was falsely declared dead. I didn’t cause that. Neither did you. Pretending the current distribution is automatically fair because we inherited the consequences would be convenient for me.”
“That sounded rehearsed.”
“Kitchen this time.”
Claire smiled.
“I don’t want the mansion.”
“Good. The plumbing is terrible.”
“Bryn Hollow?”
He went quiet.
“What?”
“The place Robert asked about the first night. He said Eleanor hated the plumbing.”
Julian laughed.
“Apparently every Ashford property has bad plumbing.”
“That’s comforting.”
Claire did file a claim.
Not for everything she might have pursued.
Not for nothing.
She used part of the eventual settlement to pay off the mortgage on the small row house Michael and Elaine had bought late in their marriage, which Claire had inherited and initially planned to sell.
She kept the house.
That surprised her.
She moved into it the following summer.
Robert helped carry one box.
After that Claire banned him from carrying anything heavier than a lamp because he refused to admit his knee hurt.
“I spent thirty-seven years in uniform.”
“And apparently none of them taught you what cartilage is.”
“My knee is fine.”
“You make a noise every time you stand up.”
“I’m seventy-three.”
“Exactly.”
Julian walked through the room carrying the ceramic fish from Claire’s storage box.
Robert looked at it.
“What is that?”
“A horse,” Julian said.
Claire pointed at him.
“You are dead to me.”
Robert examined the fish.
“It’s not bad.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes.”
They ate pizza sitting on the floor because Claire’s dining table had not arrived.
Robert removed mushrooms from his slice one by one.
Claire watched.
“My mother did that.”
He looked up.
“What?”
“She hated mushrooms.”
Robert placed another mushroom on his napkin.
“She got that from me.”
Claire almost said, She didn’t get anything from you for thirty years.
The sentence appeared fully formed.
Sharp.
Available.
She let it go.
Not because it was false.
Because it was no longer the only true thing in the room.
Near the end of August, almost exactly a year after the gala, Robert asked Claire whether he could see the locket.
The police had returned it months earlier after photographing and documenting it.
Claire kept it in her dresser.
She brought it to the back porch.
The silver had darkened again.
Robert turned it over in his palm.
“The scratch was already there when Eleanor was twenty.”
“How?”
“She threw it at me.”
Claire stared.
“She threw jewelry at you?”
“She had a temper.”
“What did you do?”
“I told her she couldn’t marry a drummer.”
Claire sat down slowly.
“Michael played drums.”
Robert looked offended.
“I know that now.”
“You tried to stop her marrying my father because he was a drummer?”
“He was also nineteen.”
“She was twenty.”
“That did not improve my view.”
Claire laughed so hard she had to put her coffee down.
Robert looked at the scratch.
“It hit a brick fireplace.”
“Did she marry him?”
“Not then.”
“So technically you won.”
Robert frowned.
“That does not feel like the lesson.”
“No.”
He found the hidden catch.
The compartment opened.
Empty now.
The note was stored with the investigation files.
Robert ran one finger over the cavity.
“I gave this to her when she was sixteen.”
“Why was there a hidden compartment?”
“My father commissioned it. He believed every woman needed a place to hide emergency money.”
“How much money fits in there?”
“Perhaps twenty dollars.”
“Your family has always had a strange understanding of emergencies.”
Robert smiled.
May you like
Then he closed the locket.
“I had a jeweler look at it.”
