Then George died, and three days after the funeral his lawyer called me into his office.
Mr. Thompson was older than George by at least twenty years, with a face permanently arranged into sympathetic lines and the kind of dignified patience that made every conversation feel like it had been moved half a step closer to church. He handled the basics first. Our apartment came to me. The savings accounts came to me. George’s small life-insurance policy came to me. I sat in the leather chair across from him and nodded through all of it, exhausted enough to feel as though my bones had been replaced with cold wax.
Then Mr. Thompson opened his desk drawer, took out a simple ring of keys, and slid them across the polished wood.
“The farmhouse is yours now, Mrs. Pierce.”
I stared at the keys and felt an immediate instinctive resistance rise up in me.
“I’ll sell it,” I said. “As soon as possible. I don’t know anything about managing property. I’ve never even been there.”
Mr. Thompson’s expression changed.
Just slightly. But enough.