Eleven days after burying my husband, my mother in law told me that in my own kitchen with the same serenity with which other women order coffee without sugar. She did not knock because she came in with the key she never returned after tending our plants one summer.
Behind her came her youngest son, Spencer, carrying a tape measure and a black notebook. Martha Thorne wore a pearl colored jacket and those expensive earrings that always seemed to foretell misfortune.
She looked at the ceiling and the marble floor before giving a brief smile as if she were already sorting through my belongings in her mind. I was still living in a fog because grief does not just break your heart but also makes you slow and clumsy.
The iced coffee cup trembled in my hands while I noticed Zoey’s little pink cup was still in the dish rack. The scent of her strawberry shampoo still lingered in the air as I looked around the kitchen.
In every corner of that house in Chandler, I saw David leaning against the kitchen island or laughing at some silly joke. He used to steal spoonfuls of peanut butter while swearing he was going to have something healthy for breakfast.
“The Thorne and Associates firm is also mine.” Martha continued while checking the walls. “I put up the money to get David started, and I have already spoken with my lawyer.”
She told me that I did not know how to handle any of this and that it was best if I just signed what they sent me without making a scene. I asked her about Zoey in a voice that did not even sound like my own.
Martha made a gesture of annoyance without even looking at the drawings stuck to the refrigerator. “You will figure it out because I have already raised my children and do not intend to take on another man’s daughter.”
I felt the air turn to a knife as she spoke those cold words. Zoey was not David’s biological daughter, but he was the most stubborn and noble man I had ever seen when he decided to love her as his own.
He taught her to ride a bike and lulled her to sleep with his favorite songs until his very last day. For Martha, however, my daughter was always a stain on the Thorne family name.
A metallic clang came from the hallway where Spencer was already measuring the closet in the guest room. It had only been eleven days since David collapsed at his desk in his office with a cup of coffee still in his hand.