Chapter 5: A Window

The dedication card rode in my bag all week, and twice I took it out to check the date against the one in my head.

They matched both times.

I had said I would go, and I meant to go, and I meant to watch who else stood in that room.

On Thursday I carried the card up the steps of Cedar Row.

The director was waiting for me in the front hall, and she did not smile.

That was how I knew.

I had been coming on Thursdays for three years, and every Thursday she waved from her office door.

Today she stood in the hall with a folded letter in her hand.

"Mrs. Carrow, could we talk before you go up?"

"Of course."

She took me into her office and shut the door.

"This came yesterday from the Carrow Family Trust." She held out the letter. "I wanted you to see it first."

I read it standing up.

It was two paragraphs long, signed by a lawyer, and it used the words pending review and compliance matter.

It did not say that the payments would stop.

It said the trust reserved the right to reconsider, and that the facility would be notified.

"They've never sent anything like this," the director said. "I've asked our billing office twice if it's a mistake."

"It isn't a mistake."

"Is there something I should know?"

"No," I said.

My voice was perfectly calm.

My hand was gripping the letter hard enough to crease it.

I looked at the paper and I thought about Hester at her marble island, folding a napkin in half and in half again.

She hadn't waited a week.

She had made one phone call on Thursday, and by Monday the letter was written.

Something hot moved through my chest, and I did not recognize it for a second.

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