Chapter 14 - What Jeffrey Had Already Signed
Lauren hated my furniture.
She hated the green velvet armchair Walter bought at an estate sale. She hated the oak dining table because it had scratches from Jeffrey’s childhood school projects. She hated the wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom, the lace curtains in the kitchen, and the fact that every room remembered someone other than her.
One afternoon, I heard her on the phone with a decorator.
“No, the bones are good. It just needs to stop looking like a widow museum.”
I stood in the hallway with a folded towel in my hands, listening to my life become an aesthetic problem.
Later that week, Jeffrey called a real estate broker and asked how quickly a house could be listed after an owner entered long-term care. He did not say my name. He did not need to. The house was the subject, and I had become the obstacle inside it.
They began speaking about future rooms.
A gym in Walter’s old workshop.
A nursery if Lauren’s sister visited with children.
A media room where my sewing room stood.
When I entered, they stopped talking.
That was almost worse than hearing them.
Once, Jeffrey caught me looking at the Christmas ornaments Walter and I had collected over decades.
“You know,” he said, “eventually you’ll have to let some of this go.”
I held the little glass angel Walter bought during our first Christmas together.
“Yes,” I said. “Eventually.”
May you like
He thought I meant the ornaments.
I meant him.
