Chapter 9: The Trust

Larissa held out her hand, admiring the ring under the kitchen lights.

"Kellan says you can't put a price on love," she said.

"He told me that too," I said. "Turns out you can. It's twenty-nine hundred."

Wells said, "Moving on. Linens."

I got through the linens.

I got through the cake flowers, and the boutonnieres, and Larissa wanting the bridesmaids in "anything but green, green's so Bren."

I smiled the whole time.

When the door shut behind them, I went into Maggie's walk-in pantry and sat on a sack of flour.

Wells found me there.

He didn't ask. He leaned on the doorframe and waited.

"I need to go to a bank tomorrow," I said. "The one on Girard. I need someone to drive me, because if I ride my bike I'll go into the river."

"Nine?"

"Nine."

"I'll bring coffee."

I'd never once looked at the trust.

After the funeral, I couldn't open my mother's mail. I couldn't open her closet. I couldn't hear her name without sitting down.

Larissa was home from London for a month.

She sat on my floor and held my hand and said, "Let me handle the boring parts. You just breathe."

She set up the online banking. She took the passwords. She said the statements were "all fine, honey, it's just sitting there growing."

I thanked her.

I think I thanked her every week for a year.

Wells picked me up at nine in his work van, the one that said BRADSHAW EVENTS on the side in gray letters.

He handed me a coffee and a soft pretzel in a paper bag.

"I don't eat breakfast," I said.

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