“Carol’s just trying to help us move forward,” he said. “We all need that.”
So I shut up. For him.
The only place she never touched was the old barn behind the house.
The barn used to be for farm stuff. By the time I was born, it was “Mom’s space.” Paper. Binders. Boxes. Everything labeled. She trusted paper more than people.
Just me and Mom, no speeches.
Carol hated it.
She called it “a depressing hoarder shed” and said going inside made her “itch with dust and old grief.”
So she didn’t go in.
She had no idea what was in there.
When the first anniversary of my mom’s death came around, I planned something quiet.
A candle. A photo. Maybe a glass of wine. Just me and Mom, no speeches.
My living room looked like a midlife crisis.
I got off work early that day, pulled into the driveway, and heard loud music from inside the house. Bass shaking the windows.
I stopped in the doorway.
There were people everywhere.
Carol’s wine friends. Coworkers. Random guys in polos. My living room looked like a midlife crisis.
Loud music. Laughter. Open bottles of wine. Beer cans on the floor.
And in everyone’s hands?
Carol spotted me and raised her glass.
My mom’s vintage crystal wine glasses.
The ones she kept wrapped in tissue. The ones she used on holidays and told me would be mine someday.
Carol spotted me and raised her glass.
“Oh good, you’re home!” she said, bright and fake. “We decided to have a celebration of life instead of a depressing death anniversary.”
One of her friends snorted.
“Yeah, funerals are such a downer. This is way healthier.”
CRASH.
Then I saw the dresses.
Two crystal glasses shattered on the tile, wine splashing everywhere. The guy who dropped them laughed and said, “Oops.”
Carol barely glanced down.
“Well,” she said, shrugging, “they’re just things. People cling to objects when they can’t let go.”
My jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
Then I saw the dresses.
At first, it was just color and movement. Then my brain caught up.
She leaned in, smelling like wine and perfume.
Carol was wearing my mom’s navy wrap dress. Her friend was in the green dress my mom wore to my graduation.
They were dancing, spinning, wine sloshing onto the fabric.
The friend tugged at the neckline.
“These are way too nice to rot in a closet,” she said. “You’re doing this stuff a favor.”
I walked up to Carol.
“Can you stop?” I asked. “Please. Today of all days.”
Something in me went flat.
She leaned in, smelling like wine and perfume.
“It’s a celebration of life, not a memorial,” she whispered, smiling. “She’s gone. I’m here now.”
She tilted her head.
“And if you can’t handle that, maybe you’re the problem.”
The music got louder again.
Something in me went flat.
Mom had shown me the key once.
I turned around and walked out the back door.
I crossed the yard to the barn.
The air inside was cool and dusty. It smelled like old paper and my mom’s perfume, faint but there.
I went straight to the metal cabinet in the back with the padlock.
Mom had shown me the key once.
“Only if you really need it,” she’d said.
My hands shook.
I guess this counted.
Inside the cabinet was a metal box. Heavy. I set it on the workbench and opened it.
No photos. No cards.
Documents.
There were printed emails between my dad and Carol, highlighted. Calendar pages with their “coffee” dates circled. Notes in my mom’s handwriting in the margins.
Six months before she died, my mom changed her will.
“Carol inserting herself again.”
“She keeps asking about the house.”
“Strange how quickly she bonded with my husband after my diagnosis.”
My hands shook.
Under that stack was something thicker. Legal paper. A signed affidavit. My mom’s name. Her lawyer’s.
Six months before she died, my mom changed her will.
She had never seen this one.
The house wasn’t my dad’s.
It was mine.
See more on the next page
Advertisement
Leave a Comment