—
On Wednesdays, I began attending the small country church farther up the road. No one there knew who Garrett had been. They only knew I sang alto and brought pound cake when it was my turn.
Little by little, I stopped expecting the phone to ring. I stopped practicing what I would say if Margaret ever apologized. I began accepting that the silence might be the rest of my life, and I told myself I could learn to live peacefully inside it.
Exactly two weeks after Garrett’s funeral, I was hanging sheets on the clothesline behind the trailer when tires crunched over the gravel.
I turned with a clothespin between my lips, expecting Joyce or perhaps the propane delivery man. Instead, a black limousine stopped beside my mailbox, long and misplaced like a piano in a cornfield.
The driver stepped out first. Then a tall man in a gray suit emerged, carrying a leather folder and a sealed cream envelope.
“Eleanor?” he said gently as he crossed the uneven yard. “I’m Mr. Whitfield. I was your husband’s attorney.”
The clothespin slipped from my mouth.
