I handled paperwork. I signed insurance forms. I boxed up George’s shirts for donation and cried into one of his old flannel sleeves because it still smelled faintly like cedar and laundry soap. I went back to work because books had to be closed and payroll had to be run, and routine was the only thing keeping me from floating off the edge of my own life. Every evening I came home to an apartment that felt too quiet without George’s careful footsteps and the scrape of his chair against the kitchen floor.
At night I lay awake thinking about the farm.
About the way Mr. Thompson had said complicated.
About the way he had not answered me.
About the fact that my husband had forbidden me from seeing a place I now legally owned.
By the eighth day, curiosity won.