Every holiday had slowly become a discussion about what we should “eventually” do with the house, the cabin, the truck, the savings.
“They’re talking about our lives as though we’re already gone,” Edmund once told me.
“They’re our children,” I had answered.
He had looked at me for a long time.
“That doesn’t make them incapable of disappointing us.”
I had defended them anyway.
I always did.
When the taxi pulled into my driveway, every light in the house was on.
At first, relief washed over me.
Maybe they had decided to surprise me after all.
Then I stepped inside.
A strip of blue tape was stuck across Edmund’s old toolbox.
WESLEY.
Another label was attached to the rocking chair in the living room.
CORINNE.
A third was on the glass cabinet containing my jewelry.
MAYA.
My granddaughter.
I stopped breathing.
There were labels everywhere.
