Corinne walked out of the kitchen carrying a plate.
“You finally made it.”
I looked at her.
She frowned.
“What took you so long? We waited before eating, but the kids got hungry.”
I slowly set my carry-on beside the stairs.
“What are those labels?”
She followed my eyes.
“Oh. That.”
“Yes. That.”
“Wesley thought it would be easier to mark the things people were interested in before everyone started arguing.”
“Interested in?”
“Mom, nobody is taking anything tonight.”
“That rocking chair belongs to me.”
Corinne rolled her eyes.
“We know.”
“Then why is your name on it?”
She exhaled.
“Because someday it won’t belong to you.”
The sentence was so casually cruel that I almost admired it.
Almost.
I went upstairs.
Corinne called after me, irritated.
“Mom, don’t turn this into something ugly.”
I closed my bedroom door.
Edmund’s flannel shirt was still folded across his pillow.
I sat beside it.
For several minutes, I cried into the fabric like a child.
Then I remembered a phone call I had received a week before Edmund died.
A local journalist named Talia Monroe had asked whether I would consider speaking about my husband.
I had refused.
Edmund was private.
He hated praise.
Talia had accepted my answer, but before hanging up, she said something strange.
“If you ever change your mind, Mrs. Hartley, call me directly. Your husband wanted the choice to remain yours.”
At the time, I was too exhausted to ask what she meant.
Now I found her number.
She answered immediately.
“Mrs. Hartley?”
“My name is Beatrice,” I said. “And I think I’m ready.”
There was a long silence.
Then she said, “I can meet you in the morning.”
“What exactly did Edmund tell you?”
“He asked me not to explain over the phone.”
My heart started pounding.
“Talia, my husband is dead. I don’t have much patience left for mysteries.”
“I understand. He came to see me three months ago. He brought documents, photographs, and several people willing to speak on camera. But he gave me one condition.”
“What condition?”
“That nothing would air unless you called me yourself after he died.”
I looked toward the bedroom door.
Downstairs, my family was laughing.
“What did he think was going to happen?”
Talia’s answer came carefully.
“He said grief sometimes reveals what people value most.”
That sounded exactly like Edmund.
The next morning, I left the house before anyone woke.
