He did not answer my silence, instead looking around the kitchen as if calculating the cost of the wallpaper. He set his mug down with a hard click that made the spoons rattle in the sink.
At four, the creak of the third step on the hallway stairs signaled his return from upstairs. I met him at the landing, where the hallway closet doors stood open.
“We should start packing up the attic this weekend,” George said, pointing a finger toward the ceiling. “It will save us a massive rush later.”
“No,” I said, standing on the creaking step to block his path. “Nothing leaves this house while he is still in his bed.”
George stepped closer, his jaw tight as he stared down at me.
“We do not have all the time in the world, Helen,” he snapped.
He pushed past me down the stairs, his quick steps echoing in the narrow space. From the bottom of the flight came the dry, hollow sound of George counting the moving boxes stacked in the hallway.
By nine the next morning, George had spread a glossy tri-fold brochure across the coffee table, right over my unpaid utility bills.
“The Meadows is only thirty miles out, near Brentwood,” he said, tapping a polished fingernail against a photograph of a concrete patio. “They have twenty-four-hour medical staff on duty, and it is a third of what we are paying Julie and her agency.”
“Dad wants to stay in his own room,” I said, keeping my hands flat on my knees so he would not see me rubbing my wedding ring. “We promised him he could stay.”
“The estate accounts are down to less than fourteen thousand dollars, Helen,” George said, leaning forward until I could smell his peppermint gum. “This house is draining everything he has left, and if we do not act now, the bank will make the decision for us.”
I looked at the photograph of the sterile courtyard with its three plastic chairs. “We are not moving him.”
