Chapter 4: What My Mother Knew
She came back twenty minutes later.
By then, Christopher had returned inside and was accepting condolences from a man I didn't recognize — older, heavyset, in a dark jacket that looked too warm for the season.
They shook hands the way men do when they've done business together.
My mother positioned herself beside the coffin again.
Straightening flowers she had already straightened.
"The man with Christopher," I breathed.
"His name is Rowan Fitch," she said, barely moving her lips.
"He's been Christopher's business partner for three years.
He's also the one who suggested the life insurance policy."
"Suggested it how?"
"He told Christopher that a policy in your name was a smart financial move.
Christopher came to me eight months ago asking if I thought you'd agree to it.
I told him to talk to you directly." Her hand found the edge of the coffin lid.
"You never mentioned it to me."
"Because Christopher told me it was his idea.
His financial advisor recommended it."
A pause.
"Rowan Fitch is not a financial advisor," my mother said.
"He runs a property company.
He and Christopher have been trying to acquire the land your house sits on for over a year.
The house is in your name, Madelyn."
The house.
The 42,000-dollar transfer.
The insurance policy.
It wasn't about Christopher wanting to be free of me.
It was about the property.
I was worth more to them d3@d than alive, and the math had been done before I ever noticed.
"Chloe," I said.
"Chloe has been in debt for two years.
I didn't know how bad until last month." My mother's voice didn't waver, but I heard what was underneath it.
"She came to me asking for money.
I didn't have enough.
Then suddenly she stopped asking."
Because she had found another solution.
"Mom." I had to say it.
"Did you know?
Before today?"
The pause was long enough that my chest tightened.
"I knew something was wrong," she said finally.
"I didn't know it was this."
Across the room, Rowan Fitch set his coffee cup down and checked his watch.
Christopher noticed.
"We're on schedule," he said, just loud enough.
Rowan nodded.
One short, satisfied nod.
"Mom, I need to get out of here before one-thirty."
"I know."
"I can't walk yet.
My left leg—"
"I know." She adjusted the flowers one final time.
"There's a woman here.
Aunt Patricia's neighbor, Ruth.
She drove Patricia this morning and she's been sitting in the back room the whole time.
She doesn't know your husband.
She doesn't know Chloe.
And she used to be a nurse."
I absorbed that.
"Can you trust her?"
"I've known Ruth Calloway for eleven years."
"Does she have a phone?"
"Everyone has a phone, Madelyn."
Something close to a laugh moved through me.
I stopped it before it became sound.
"I need you to get Ruth.
Don't tell anyone else.
Not the aunts, not Patricia — nobody.
Bring her here and tell the others you need a moment alone to say goodbye."
"And then?"
"And then we call 911 from Ruth's phone before Christopher can do anything about it."
My mother straightened up.
She smoothed her dress.
She turned and walked toward the back room with the steady, unhurried steps of a woman going to grieve privately.
Chloe watched her go.
So did Christopher.
Neither of them moved to follow her.
Rowan Fitch checked his watch again.
I lay still and counted my own heartbeats, and I thought about the house my grandmother had left me, and the necklace around my sister's neck, and the 42,000 dollars that had already moved, and I understood that the only reason any of them were standing in that room pretending to mourn was because they believed I could not fight back.
They had made one very expensive mistake.
Then I heard the back room door open, and two sets of footsteps crossed the hall.
Ruth Calloway appeared at the edge of my vision — a small woman with gray hair and reading glasses pushed up on her forehead.
She looked at the coffin.
She looked at my mother.
May you like
"Gwen," she said quietly.
"What is happening?"
