I turned to see her standing there, her gold watch catching the hallway light.
“He was frightened, Laura.”
“You are spoiling him, and he needs to sleep,” Laura said.
“You need to step back and let us parent our children.”
The house was entirely silent the next morning when I walked down the hall to wake my son.
The blanket on his bed was undisturbed, his face peaceful, but his skin was already cold to my touch.
The doctors said his heart had simply stopped in his sleep, a quiet end to a quiet man.
I stood on the back porch alone as the morning light crept over the yard.
I stared at the empty space on the porch where Mark used to sit.
Laura dropped a stack of paper onto the mahogany dining room table at two o’clock the following Tuesday. The pages slid across the polished wood, stopping inches from my teacup. She tapped her gold wrist watch with her index finger, her gaze fixed on me.
“That money went to the roof, Helen, and there is nothing left in the ledger,” Laura said.
