I knew something had changed upstairs before I saw the suitcases. The bedroom door was closed, and the small brass key Elias and I kept in the hall dish was gone. His sister Nora had arrived after the funeral with her husband, Cal, and three garment bags, saying they would stay until the estate was settled. I had assumed they meant the guest room. When I opened my own door, Nora was hanging her black dress in my wardrobe. My nightgown and slippers had been folded into a laundry basket beside the stairs.
Nora said the largest room should go to the people handling family business. Elias had been her brother for sixty-two years, she reminded me, while I had been his wife for only eleven. Cal carried my basket to the sewing room before I found an answer. The house had belonged to Elias before we married, and although he had told me my name was on everything, I had never seen the final papers. Grief made every remembered promise feel like a sentence overheard through a wall. I slept that night on a narrow daybed beneath unfinished curtains. I stood by the basket, unable to recognize my home.
At four in the morning, I heard Nora opening drawers upstairs. I went to the kitchen rather than confront her and reached for Elias's chipped tea tin. Inside was a blue envelope I had not seen before. My name was written across it in his blocky dispatcher handwriting. The flap had been sealed with transparent tape, then opened and taped again. I looked toward the ceiling, imagining Nora's careful fingers, and carried it to the pantry where I could turn on one light. Before I broke the remaining seal, the old dispatch telephone on the wall rang once and stopped.