Below it were columns for food, utilities, repairs, medicine, and emergency savings.
At the bottom, he had written one sentence.
Keep the house if possible.
I read it again, and my eyes filled with tears.
Then my phone rang.
It was the hospital.
My mother had been moved to another room, and the nurse needed to discuss a decision concerning her treatment.
I stood so quickly that I struck my shoulder against the low ceiling.
Ray caught my arm.
“Careful.”
“I’m fine,” I said, although I wasn’t.
I had spent so long believing that our problems were too big for anyone to solve that I had forgotten what it felt like to have someone standing beside me.
We climbed out of the cellar.
Before we returned to the house, Ray placed the brass key in my palm.
“This belongs to you now.”
I stared at it.
“No,” I said, closing my fingers around the key. “It belongs to us.”
