Chapter 7: Stephanie
Brad's attorney filed the withdrawal of the will contest on a Friday morning.
Grace called me before nine.
"It's done," she said.
"Officially withdrawn.
No further challenge."
I sat down at the kitchen table with my coffee and let that settle.
"What about Stephanie?" I asked.
"She was listed as a co-petitioner."
"She withdrew with him.
Whether that was her choice or his, I don't know."
It was three days before I found out.
Stephanie called on a Monday afternoon.
I almost didn't answer.
I stood in the living room watching her name on the screen through two full rings before I picked up.
"I'm not calling to fight," she said immediately.
Her voice was flat, controlled.
"I just need to say something."
"All right."
A pause.
"Brad told me everything.
The money.
What he said to Dad.
All of it." Another pause.
"I didn't know.
I want you to know that.
I didn't know about the transfers."
I believed her.
I wasn't sure why, but I did.
"I believe you," I said.
"I've been telling people for ten years that you married him for the house." Her voice didn't waver, but I could hear what it was costing her to keep it steady.
"I said it at Christmas dinners and birthday parties and to anyone who would listen.
I said it because I wanted it to be true.
Because if it was true, then you were the problem and everything was simple."
I sat down on the arm of the sofa.
"And if it wasn't true?" I said.
"Then my father spent the last decade of his life with a woman who actually loved him, and I wasted that time making both of you miserable." Her breath caught slightly.
"I've been sitting with that for three days."
The afternoon light was long and pale through the window.
"Stephanie," I said.
"Your father knew you loved him.
Whatever happened between us — he never doubted that."
"He wrote you a letter." Her voice was very quiet now.
"He left you a box with a letter and evidence and a photograph and instructions for his attorney.
He planned it for months." A silence.
"He didn't leave me a letter."
There was nothing I could say to that.
It was true, and it was painful, and there was no softening it.
"He was protecting me," I said finally.
"That's what the letter was.
He was trying to fix what he hadn't fixed while he was alive.
It wasn't a reward.
It was an apology."
She didn't respond right away.
"I owe you one too," she said at last.
"An apology.
I know it's late.
I know it probably doesn't change much.
But I wanted to say it."
"It changes something," I said.
Another long pause.
"I don't know if we can have any kind of relationship.
I don't know if you'd even want that."
"I don't know either," I said honestly.
"But I'm not opposed to finding out."
She made a sound that might have been a short, tired laugh.
"That's more than I deserve."
"Maybe.
But it's what I've got."
When I hung up, I sat for a while without moving.
Outside, the light was fading, the sky going from pale gold to grey.
The four acres stretched out behind the house, the old oak at the back fence line standing dark against the sky the way it always had.
I thought about Frank.
About the eleven years, the gatherings, the comments I'd stopped correcting.
About the letter he'd written with his tired hands, trying to do in four pages what he hadn't managed in a decade of living.
He had been a good man.
Not a perfect one.
But good.
I got up, turned on the kitchen light, and started on dinner.
It was a quiet evening.
The house was warm.
May you like
The floorboards creaked in the familiar places.
For the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like a guest in my own home.
