“Do you recognize the handwriting on the clerk line?” I asked.
Evelyn pulled her hands back and tucked them under her wool coat.
“Some secrets are better left in the past, Martha.”
“My grandfather was a national hero for naming that product,” I said.
“A name is just a name,” she said.
She looked toward the front window, refusing to meet my eyes again.
I looked at the uncashed check lying between us on the table.
He had kept the check in the dark for a lifetime, a debt that was never settled.
By eight o’clock the next morning, the pale sun barely cut through the grime of the study window.
Clara was already there, a brown tape gun in her hand, sealing a cardboard box of old National Geographics with short, aggressive jerks.
Her right foot tapped against the hardwood floor, a frantic, silent rhythm that seemed to rattle the loose panes in the window.
“We need to clear this room by noon,” Clara said. “The appraiser is coming. He is strict. Very strict.”
I ignored her and pulled open the bottom drawer of our grandfather’s roll-top desk.
