Chapter 18: The $48,000

Lena's POV

The cab driver let me out at the hospice at eleven at night.

I sat on the bench in the memorial garden until my dress was damp.

My mother's name was on a brass leaf on the garden wall, third row from the top.

I had never once come back to look at it.

I put my hand flat against the cold leaf.

Then I cried for the first time in three years.

I cried for her, and for the soup, and for the fourteen months on Gwendolyn's phone plan.

I cried because Cal had stood in front of two hundred people and told them he sent Gwendolyn's envelope of cash back.

After a while the night nurse came out in his blue scrubs and sat on the bench at my left.

He didn't say anything.

He had a paper cup of tea, and he put it in my hands.

"Your mother used to make me do the crossword out loud," he said at last.

"She'd say the answers before I could."

I laughed, and it came out wet.

"She did that to the whole third grade."

"I'd have liked to see that."

We sat there until the tea was gone.

On Monday morning I walked into the hospice lobby with a thank-you card for the night nurse in my bag.

My phone buzzed against the front desk while I was signing the visitor book.

It was my bank, and the alert said something I had to read three times.

Incoming wire: Courtland Marina LLC. $48,000.00.

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