Thomas didn’t ask for details over the phone. He just offered me an appointment and told me he’d make time.
When I hung up, the house felt different. The same furniture. The same photographs. The same soft ticking of the clock in the hallway. But something had shifted in how I stood inside it.
For the next forty-eight hours, I thought carefully about what I truly wanted.
Not what I felt pressured to do.
Not what tradition dictated.
Not what guilt tried to force onto my shoulders.
What did I want?
Who deserved the life Robert and I had spent thirty-two years building together?
The answer came easier than I expected, and that frightened me at first. I didn’t like how quickly the truth presented itself, as if it had been waiting behind a curtain this whole time.
I made lists on yellow legal pads at the kitchen table, my pen scratching across the paper. I walked through the house and looked at objects like they were evidence. The photo of David in his cap and gown. Robert holding him by the shoulders, both of them grinning like fools. The family vacation picture at Cannon Beach where David had buried his father in sand and then insisted we take a photo of Robert’s head sticking out like a statue.
I felt love for those memories, sharp and tender.
And I felt something else, too. A dawning understanding of how long I had been clinging to the idea of a person rather than the reality of him.
I researched charities. I read about scholarship funds and local organizations. I made careful notes about the animal shelter where Robert and I had adopted Max, our old dog with the soulful eyes who’d died two years after Robert, as if he’d been waiting for permission to leave. I looked up the children’s hospital where I’d once volunteered when David was young and I’d been desperate for something outside myself.
By the time I sat down in Thomas’s office, my mind was clear.
Thomas’s office smelled faintly of paper and citrus cleaner. The waiting room was quiet except for the soft click of a keyboard from behind the reception desk. A small water feature burbled in the corner, its sound meant to soothe. I found it irritating. It was too cheerful.
Thomas greeted me with a warm handshake and led me into his office. I sat in the same chair I’d sat in after Robert died.
He watched me carefully. Not suspiciously. Just attentively, like a man used to reading the small tremors in people.
“I’m ready,” I said, and my voice didn’t shake.
I showed him the text message, letting him read it in silence. I watched his face as his eyes moved across the screen. He didn’t react dramatically. His expression tightened slightly, as if the words had offended him on my behalf.
Then I told him about the pattern of financial requests over the years.
It wasn’t one big dramatic demand. It had been a drip, drip, drip.
A “temporary loan” for a down payment that took years to repay, if it was repaid at all. A request to help with private school tuition because “it’s for the kids, Mom.” Money for a car repair. Money for a vacation they’d already booked. It had always come wrapped in family language, the soft manipulation of “we’re in a tough spot” and “you’re the only one who can help.”
And each time I’d told myself it was normal.
Each time I’d told myself it was what mothers did.
Thomas listened without judgment. He took careful notes. He asked gentle questions to clarify details. He never once implied I was overreacting or petty or unloving.
When I outlined my new wishes, he nodded.
“All right,” he said. “We can do this. I’ll have updated documents prepared within the week.”
Walking out of his office, I felt lighter than I had in months.
Maybe years.
It was a strange kind of freedom, realizing I could choose my own path even in death. It felt like breathing after being underwater too long.
I drove home through familiar Portland streets. The sky was a pale spring blue, and the air had that damp brightness the city gets after a light rain. I passed the park where I’d pushed David on swings when he was small. I passed the ice cream shop where we’d celebrated his high school graduation, his cheeks flushed with pride and summer heat as he tried to pretend he wasn’t thrilled.
Those memories didn’t hurt the way I expected.
They simply existed.
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