“You need to clear out your things by the end of the week,” Marcus said, his voice low enough that the other mourers couldn’t hear.
“We were standing in the church vestibule, the stained glass casting colored shadows across his face. The house is mine now. Dad made that clear years ago.”
I stared at him. My black dress still had a tissue tucked in the sleeve from crying during the service.
Marcus, we haven’t even read the will yet.
The will is just a formality. He straightened his tie. Hermes, I noticed absently. You know how dad felt. Sons inherit. That’s how it’s always been.
You should be grateful I’m giving you a week.
Grateful. The word came out strangled.
Look.
He softened his voice into something that might have sounded reasonable to anyone who didn’t know him. I understand this is hard. You’ve been living there, taking care of things, but that was your choice. You could have had a real career, a real life. Instead, you chose to play nurse. That’s not my fault.
Behind him, Victoria was checking her phone, already bored.
That’s not Marcus. I took care of mom for 2 years. While you while I what?
His eyes went hard. While I built something, while I made something of myself. Don’t pretend wiping bed pans is the same as running a business, Briana. We both know what you are.
He stepped back, adjusting his cuffs. One week, he said. Then I’m changing the locks.
I watched him walk back to Victoria, watched her lean in and smile. Watch them leave without saying goodbye to anyone.
That was Monday.
He didn’t even wait a week.
Wednesday evening, 2 days after the funeral, I came home from work at 700 p.m. Exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the shift. Grief does that. Makes everything feel like you’re moving through water.
My key didn’t work. I tried again, confused, thinking maybe the cold had warped something. But no, the lock had been changed. The deadbolt, too.
I walked around to the garage.
My things, my clothes, my books, mom’s recipe box that she’d given me.
Everything I owned had been thrown into cardboard moving boxes and stacked against the wall. Rain from the afternoon had soaked through two of them. My nursing school diploma was warped and wet.
Through the window, I could see Victoria walking through the living room, a glass of wine in her hand, laughing at something on her phone. She saw me watching. She smiled, lifted her glass in a little toast, and walked away.
I called Marcus. He answered on the second ring like he’d been waiting.
“The house is legally mine,” he said, not even pretending to apologize. I had my lawyer verify it.
“Dad’s estate, Dad’s house, Dad’s decision. You have 24 hours to get your stuff off the property before I have it removed.”
Marcus, I grew up there, and now you don’t live there anymore.
That’s how life works, Briana. Maybe if you’d made something of yourself, you wouldn’t be standing in the rain right now.
I ended the call because I didn’t trust myself to speak. I sat down on the wet grass next to the boxes of my ruined belongings and held the one thing that hadn’t been damaged, Mom’s Timex watch, tucked safely in my pocket since the hospital returned her personal effects.
That’s when I found the letter.
The letter was in a box of mom’s things. Items Marcus must have assumed were junk. Her gardening gloves, a few old photographs, and a cream colored envelope with my name written in her handwriting.
For Briana, when the time comes,
I didn’t open it on that lawn. I couldn’t.
Instead, I called the only person I could think of, Diane Foster, the head nurse at Maplewood, who’d been something like a mentor to me for 3 years.
She arrived in her Honda Odyssey within 30 minutes.
“Get in,” she said, not asking questions. “You’re staying with me tonight and tomorrow, and as long as you need.”
Her apartment was small. Two bedrooms in a Hartford complex that had seen better days, but it was warm and dry. And when she handed me a cup of tea and a blanket, I finally let myself cry.
Later, when I could breathe again, I opened mom’s letter. Her handwriting was shaky. She must have written it during chemo when her hands trembled constantly.
My darling Briana, if you’re reading this, then what I feared has happened.
Your father and your brother have shown you exactly who they are. I want you to know, I saw it. I always saw it. And I couldn’t change your father. God knows I tried, but I could protect you. Contact Evelyn Cole at Harrison and Cole in Hartford. She has everything you need.
All the papers, all the arrangements, everything I couldn’t give you while I was alive. You are not a burden. You never were. You are the best thing I ever did. I love you more than lavender and sunshine and every good thing, Mom.
I read it three times before the words made sense.
Then I called the number she’d written at the bottom.
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