“This one is stopped too,” I said, holding the silver disk up.
“The old man did not believe in batteries,” Raymond said.
He checked his phone again, his eyes darting toward the stairs.
“Did you come by the house the night he went into the hospital?” I asked.
Raymond did not answer. He turned and walked down the stairs, his heavy leather shoes vibrating through the banister.
In the kitchen, the afternoon light was starting to turn amber.
A cardboard box of seventy-two dollar medical monitors sat on the linoleum, unopened and taped shut.
Raymond was leaning against the sink, his hands deep in his pockets, staring out at the gravel driveway.
“I called a clean-out crew,” he said. “They are coming next Monday.”
I set the silver pocket watch on the kitchen table near his car keys. His phone buzzed twice against the wood.
“Who is calling you so much?” I asked.
“Work,” he said, snatching the phone up and slipping it into his pocket. “Just work.”
“Monday is too soon, Raymond. We need weeks for this, not days.”
“We cannot live in a museum, Martha, we need to clear this place,” he said.
“I need time to look through his things,” I said. “We have the probate process anyway.”
“There is a sixty-dollar filing fee for the probate papers, and the utility bills are already coming in,” he said, his voice rising.
“I can pay the utilities,” I said, my hand going back to my wedding band.
“The crew is booked,” he said, grabbing his keys from the table. “Be ready by Monday.”
He walked out, and the back door latch clicked into place with a dry, final snap.
By six o’clock, the porch was cold, and the twilight had turned the front yard into dark, heavy shapes.
The leaves on the porch floor scraped against the wood as a cool wind blew from the north.
