She did not throw the suitcase back at them.
She did not tell Daniel that his father would have been ashamed to see him standing there.
She simply got up, washed her face, combed her hair, and put on the same black dress because she had not yet found the strength to choose ordinary clothes.
In the hallway, she paused beside the pencil marks on the doorframe.
Daniel, age six.
Ashley, age eight.
Daniel, age twelve, after a summer growth spurt that made Robert laugh and say they would need taller doorways.
Margaret touched the marks with two fingers.
Then she moved on.
In the dining room, the printed list was still on the table.
Beside her coffee mug lay a power-of-attorney form printed from Hamilton County Legal Services.
The title was centered at the top in bold letters.
Someone had placed a pen on top of it.
That small gesture offended her more than the form itself.
It assumed she would sign because a pen had been provided.
She walked past it.
In the junk drawer, under rubber bands, old keys, and a packet of stamps, Robert had once kept every bank envelope and handwritten attorney note.
That drawer was empty now.
Daniel must have searched it.
Margaret almost smiled.
Robert had predicted that too.
Two weeks before he died, he had sat in Mary Caldwell’s office with his coat folded across his lap and said, “If they come looking, they’ll look where they remember things used to be.”
Mary had looked at Margaret then.
“And where will the real documents be?”
“In her purse,” Robert had said.
Margaret had told him not to talk like that.
Robert had taken her hand.
“Meg,” he said, using the nickname only he used, “love them if you can. But don’t let them eat you alive.”
She had cried after that meeting in the car.
Robert had stared through the windshield at the courthouse flag moving in the wind and pretended not to notice until she was ready to breathe again.
Now, standing in her kitchen without him, Margaret picked up her purse.
It was heavier than it looked.
Daniel took the suitcase.
Ashley took nothing.
They moved through the front door together.
The little American flag Robert had stuck in the porch planter after Memorial Day last year was still there, faded at the edges, leaning slightly from the rain.
Margaret noticed Daniel did not hold the door for her.
The SUV smelled like leather, coffee, and the artificial pine tree hanging from the rearview mirror.
Ashley sat in the passenger seat.
Margaret sat in the back behind Daniel.
No music played.
No one talked about breakfast.
No one talked about sleep.
No one talked about Robert.
Daniel drove past the grocery store where Margaret had bought birthday cakes for both children, past the diner where Robert had met suppliers for twenty-five years, past the small brick building where the business had first rented two rooms before the warehouse.
Then he did not turn toward the assisted-living facility.
He turned away from town.
Margaret saw Ashley’s shoulders stiffen.
The assisted-living brochure was tucked into the seat pocket in front of her.
Its smiling gray-haired couple looked absurdly cheerful under the words “Comfort, Safety, Community.”
Nobody mentioned it.
