“My mom says I can go upstairs now.” he told me as if he were talking about moving a piece of furniture. I let him in to unpack his things, but then I immediately called the police to have him removed.
When they took him back to Martha’s car, she called me screaming that I was an ungrateful opportunist and a widow with no rights. My mother drove from Denver to hug me while my best friend forced me to hire a professional lawyer.
I obeyed her advice without imagining that David had already fought this war before he died. What I found in his office that same week changed everything for my future.
The lawyer I hired was named Diane Faulkner. In the local legal circles, everyone knew her as a woman who never lost a case through carelessness.
Her office was in an old house with bookshelves reaching the ceiling and a silence that forced one to think clearly. She reviewed the documents Martha had sent me in less than an hour before she finally took off her glasses.