I read it six times, until the paper was damp from my breath and the ink seemed to pulse with a life of its own. Then I folded it neatly, placed it in my purse, and went to bed. I slept more deeply than I had since his funeral.
At 7:30 the next morning, I was dressed in my best navy suit—the one I wore to Harold’s memorial, altered to fit my thinner frame. I walked two blocks to the branch of First National Bank where Mrs. Patterson, a woman with kind eyes and a librarian’s precision, had handled our family’s accounts for over twenty years. She’d seen Benjamin grow up, had attended his high school graduation party at our old house. She had sent a condolence card when Harold died, hand-delivered, with a loaf of banana bread still warm from her oven.
