ELEANOR—BEFORE SOPHIE DOES.
Underneath was one number:
417.
I stared.
Then turned the paper over.
Nothing.
My first emotion wasn’t fear.
It was anger.
“What did you do, Thomas?”
The empty living room did not answer.
I CALLED SOPHIE WITHOUT MENTIONING THE KEY
“How are you?”
She sounded surprised.
“Managing.”
“Did you find Dad’s ring?”
“Yes.”
“And everything else?”
I looked at the key in my palm.
“What everything else?”
A pause.
“Nothing.”
There.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
But after forty years married to Thomas, I knew what hesitation sounded like when someone was constructing a sentence.
“Sophie.”
“Yes?”
“Did your father leave anything for me?”
Silence.
Then:
“No.”
The answer settled it.
I booked a flight to Westhaven that afternoon.
I didn’t tell her.
THOMAS AND SOPHIE HAD NEVER HAD AN EASY RELATIONSHIP
Sophie was eleven when Thomas and I married.
Her mother had left him three years earlier and moved abroad.
Sophie stayed with her mother most of the year.
Summers belonged to Thomas.
And technically—
to me.
I tried.
Probably too hard.
Birthday presents.
Christmas cards.
A bedroom in our Bellmere house that remained hers even when she visited only once every two years.
When she was sixteen, I told her:
“You don’t have to call me Mom.”
She answered:
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Thomas almost corrected her.
I stopped him.
She wasn’t cruel.
Just guarded.
By adulthood, she and Thomas spoke sporadically.
Then, about eighteen months before his death, that changed.
Weekly calls.
Long ones.
Sometimes Thomas took them outside.
I noticed.
I asked:
“Everything okay with Sophie?”
“Yes.”
“What are you two suddenly discussing for two hours every Sunday?”
He smiled.
“None of your business.”
I thought he was joking.
Now—
I wasn’t sure.
