PART 4
The next morning, I barely slept.
At breakfast, my husband noticed immediately.
“You okay?”
I nodded.
“Just tired.”
He poured coffee into his mug.
The funeral had left everyone emotionally exhausted, but his siblings were already calling.
His older brother, Daniel, wanted to come over.
His sister, Rebecca, wanted to go through Ernest’s belongings.
And his younger brother, Thomas, had apparently already started asking about the property.
I listened quietly.
Then Daniel arrived around ten.
He didn’t knock.
He walked straight into the house as though nothing had changed.
“Where’s Dad’s paperwork?”
My husband looked at him.
“What paperwork?”
“The property documents. Bank statements. Insurance. Anything like that.”
I stood in the kitchen doorway.
“It’s only been one day.”
Daniel sighed.
“I know, Maria. But we need to get organized.”
Rebecca arrived twenty minutes later.
She brought two empty cardboard boxes.
I knew immediately what they were for.
She went upstairs and began sorting through Ernest’s clothes.
“This can be donated.”
She held up an old sweater.
Then another.
Then a pair of shoes.
She didn’t cry.
None of them did.
Not really.
Maybe they had their own way of grieving.
I didn’t judge them.
But watching them handle his belongings so quickly made something inside me ache.
His whole life had been reduced to boxes.
Old clothes.
Medicine bottles.
Photographs.
Tools.
A wooden radio.
And a torn pillow.
The pillow was the only thing I had kept.
I had hidden it inside my bedroom closet before they came.
The brass key was in my pocket.
I could feel its weight against my hand.
I kept thinking about the note.
Not the house. Look beneath it.
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