“You were little.”
“Why did Mom never tell me?”
Brad shrugged.
“Maybe everyone thought there would be more time.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Stephanie came to the next lunch.
She apologized again.
Better this time.
Specific.
She apologized for calling me a gold digger.
For making jokes at Thanksgiving.
For telling relatives I was waiting for Frank to die.
That one was new.
It hurt.
But I appreciated hearing it from her rather than from someone else.
The house is still ours.
All three of ours.
The two-year restriction has another 15 months left.
I still live there.
Brad comes by to help with the property.
Stephanie has started going through Linda’s old things with me.
Sometimes we disagree.
Sometimes one of us cries.
Sometimes we laugh.
Last week, we found an old recipe card in my mother’s handwriting tucked inside Linda’s cookbook.
Peach cobbler.
Stephanie stared at it.
“Dad hated peaches.”
“So did Mom.”
We both started laughing.
I don’t know why.
Maybe because after all the secrets and money and resentment, two women who are both dead had apparently bonded over making desserts neither family actually wanted.
I framed the recipe.
It hangs in the kitchen now.
The locked box is in Frank’s old desk.
