“Yes.”
“Then who was she talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
The question settled between us.
I thought of my childhood home, the old landline, the rooms that still smelled faintly of cedar and furniture polish. My mother had kept almost everything. Receipts, birthday cards, sewing patterns, letters from relatives I barely remembered. She had never been a woman who threw away evidence of the past.
After her death, I had gone through the house carefully, believing I knew every drawer and cupboard.
But grief made people selective. We remembered what we could bear to remember.
“I’m going to the cottage tomorrow,” I said.
“I’ll come with you.”
“You have work.”
“I already called in.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I know.” His voice softened. “But I want to.”
That answer reminded me of Douglas. Not the sound of it, exactly, but the way it carried more meaning than the words themselves.
