evening, after she went to sleep, I stepped onto the porch.
Snow had begun to fall.
Claire stood beside me holding two mugs of coffee.
She handed me one.
“You know,” she said, “I really did think you married him for money.”
“I did.”
She looked surprised.
I smiled.
“At first.”
Claire laughed.
“Fair.”
“And you really did think I’d get nothing.”
“I was wrong.”
I looked through the window at the warm lights inside Bellweather House.
At the place built from ashes.
At the life created from everything we had lost.
“No,” I said. “You were almost right.”
Claire raised an eyebrow.
“Russell gave away most of the money. The mansion is gone. The cars are gone. The watches are gone.”
“So what did you get?”
I looked at the house.
At my mother inside arguing with Daniel over dinner.
At Hayes fixing a broken cabinet because he still
