“This is insane,” Megan said. “He is your son. Your son.”
“And you are his wife,” Eleanor said. “Which is why this conversation matters. Not because I expect you to agree with my decision. But because you should understand what led to it.”
What led to it
Two years of small moments that she had watched carefully. The way the house was discussed in her presence. The questions Megan’s mother asked. The sister’s unsolicited emails. The overheard conversation about deck permits. Each one small. Together, a pattern that could not be unnamed.
The room was quiet. Through the open windows, the ocean made its sound, the same sound it had made while she and Robert had sat on the porch steps and she had told him that one day this would all feel like a dream.
“For the next several months,” Eleanor said, “Robert and I will have the conversations we need to have, because he is my son and that relationship is not finished. But this house is not part of those conversations. What happens here after I die is already decided and not subject to further discussion.”
Megan looked at her for a long moment.