Chapter 13: What She Asked Him

I sat.

The armchair creaked as Gene turned his good shoulder toward me and lifted the tablet off his knee.

In the kitchen, Neil ran the tap for no reason I could see.

"Is it true?" I said.

"Yes," said the voice.

"You sold her garden."

"Yes."

"Tressa says your wife made you promise on the day she died."

Gene's finger went down, and then down again, slowly, the way it does for anything long.

The voice read it out in pieces, and I made myself wait for each piece.

"The last Tuesday. She was in the hospital bed in our front room, with the oxygen on."

"She said, Gene, do not ever sell my garden for money."

I looked at my hands.

"Tressa heard that much," said the voice. "Then Tressa went to the kitchen to take a call."

"What was the rest?"

"Sell it for a person."

The room was quiet enough that I heard the ramp tick in the cold.

"I did not know what she meant," the voice said. "Not for three years. Then I had my stroke, and a girl moved into the spare room for a few months."

"Gene."

"Let me finish. It takes me a long time."

So I let him.

"At your wedding the caterer was short two waiters. You took off your shoes and cleared the head table in your dress."

"You told nobody. She watched you from her chair, and she said nothing."

I had forgotten that entirely.

My feet had hurt for two days, and Craig had asked why I was limping.