Chapter 5: When David Came Back Alone
He came back three days later without Sarah.
I saw his car from the upstairs window — the same silver SUV, pulling slowly into the driveway the way it does when he's uncertain about something.
David has always driven faster when he's confident.
I learned that when he was seventeen.
I went downstairs and opened the door before he could knock.
He looked tired.
There were shadows under his eyes I didn't recognize, and his shirt was wrinkled in a way Sarah would never have permitted.
"Mom," he said.
"David."
He glanced at the porch.
The geraniums were still there.
Sarah's bags were not — she had arranged for a car to collect them the previous afternoon.
I had watched from the window without going outside.
"Can I come in?" he said.
I stepped back and let him through.
He sat at the kitchen table — Robert's chair, the one at the head — and then seemed to realize it and moved one seat over.
I noticed that.
I didn't say anything about it.
I made tea because it gave me something to do with my hands.
"I didn't know it said all of that," he said.
"The paperwork."
I set his cup down in front of him.
"Then who did?" I said.
He wrapped both hands around the mug.
Didn't drink.
"Sarah found someone.
A friend of hers who does legal work.
She said it was protective.
For the family."
"Protective of whom, David?"
He didn't answer that.
"I thought it was what she said it was," he said.
"I should have read it myself.
I know that."
"You brought it to me on a Sunday afternoon," I said.
"You sat right there and told me it was standard.
You watched me sign it."
"I know."
"You had it notarized in my kitchen."
"Mom—"
"Did you know what it was?"
The question landed hard.
He flinched — just slightly, around the eyes.
"I knew it gave me more authority than a basic power of attorney," he said quietly.
"I told myself it was for your protection.
I told myself if something happened to you, it was better to have more authority than less."
"And the bedroom?"
He stared at his tea.
"That was Sarah," he said.
"You stood in my kitchen and told me to be respectful and let you have my room."
"I know what I said."
"Then stop telling me what was Sarah and what was you.
You were there, David.
You said those words with your own mouth."
He looked up.
His eyes were wet.
I had not seen my son cry since his father's funeral, and I did not soften now the way I had then.
That had been grief.
This was something else.
"I'm sorry, Mom," he said.
"I have a lawyer," I told him.
"She's filing to have that document challenged.
I need you to cooperate with that process."
Something shifted in his expression.
Not guilt this time.
Something more careful.
"Sarah isn't going to like that," he said.
"I didn't ask what Sarah would like."
He was quiet for a long moment.
His hands moved around the mug.
"She said if you fight this," he started, "she has a friend at the county assessor's office.
She said she can make things complicated."
I looked at my son across Robert's kitchen table.
"Tell her to do her worst," I said.
"And then tell her my lawyer's name is Grace Holloway."
David's face changed completely when I said that name.
He knew it.
May you like
I could see that he knew it.
He picked up his tea, finally, and said nothing else for a very long time.
