I drove home in a kind of silence I had not known my own car could hold.
At home, there was a message waiting.
Not from Eli’s tablet.
From Spencer.
Landed. He’s fine. School starts Monday. Also, Laura, Eli says he may have taken something of his grandmother’s by mistake before we left. A card. If you find it in his things, I need it couriered to the Lisbon address immediately. It’s an estate matter and it’s time-sensitive. Don’t make this difficult.
I read it twice.
Then I opened the drawer under the socks and took out the funeral check, and I understood, finally, why a man would hand a woman two thousand dollars in front of forty people at his mother’s funeral.
So that she would feel small enough never to ask what else her name was on.
At 9:40 that night, the tablet buzzed.
A voice memo.
Eleven seconds.
