Sixty-three minutes after my husband was lowered into the ground, his daughter put her name on my mother’s clock.
I remember the number because grief had made me strangely attentive to time. Pastor Dave had finished the graveside prayer at 12:45. At 1:48, I was standing in my living room watching Diane Mercer peel a bright pink square from a pad of sticky notes.
She pressed it beneath the brass face of the walnut mantel clock.
DIANE.
For several seconds, I simply stared. The color looked ridiculous among the funeral flowers, dark dresses, untouched coffee, and plates of food neighbors had brought to the house.
“Diane,” I said. “What are you doing?”
She barely glanced at me.
“Making things easier.”
“For whom?”
Instead of answering, she crossed to the china cabinet and attached another note.
Her name again.
Behind her, mourners shifted uncomfortably. Mrs. Hendricks stopped chewing. My sister, standing beside the coffee urn, narrowed her eyes but said nothing.
Then Ross appeared from the hallway carrying a tape measure.
Frank’s son crouched beside the television stand, hooked the metal end across one edge, and stretched the tape to the other.
“Fifty-eight inches,” he announced.
Diane studied it. “That should work.”
“Work where?” I asked.
Ross let the tape snap back into its case.
“My den.”
I looked at the television. Frank and I had bought it together four years earlier after our old one developed a green stripe across every face. The receipt was probably still in the kitchen drawer.
“Why would my television be going into your den?”
Ross gave me a puzzled look, as though I had misunderstood something elementary.
“We’ll have to divide Dad’s property sooner or later.”
“That television is mine.”
“He used it.”
“So did I.”
He shrugged.
That small movement did more than his words. My husband had been dead less than two hours, and already I was apparently required to prove ownership of objects inside my own home.
Diane walked toward Frank’s recliner.
I saw the sticky note in her fingers before she placed it.
The chair still held the shape of him.
Frank had spent his final months losing weight faster than either of us wanted to acknowledge. During his last afternoon downstairs, he had sat in that recliner beneath a blanket while sunlight moved across the carpet. His slippers were still tucked beneath the footrest.
Diane pressed her name near the armrest.
Something inside me hardened.
“Take it off.”
She looked around.
“What?”
“Your note. Remove it from Frank’s chair.”
Ross sighed. “Eileen, please.”
“Please what?”
“Nobody needs this today.”
I almost laughed.
Diane was labeling my furniture, Ross was measuring my television, and somehow I was the person creating unpleasantness.
Diane reluctantly peeled away the note.
For one hopeful second, I thought embarrassment had finally reached her.
Then she stuck it onto the side table.
“There.”
Three weeks earlier, Frank had been lying upstairs beneath clean white sheets when he asked me an odd question.
“Red, when Diane and Ross come here after I’m gone, what do you think they’ll take first?”
I had been peeling an orange beside the bed.
“Your hideous brass bird.”
A weak smile crossed his face.
The bird sat on our bookshelf, an ugly little brass thing with one crooked wing.
“They don’t want that.”
“Nobody wants that.”
“You tried throwing it away.”
“Four times.”
His smile disappeared.
“What will they want?”
I had known what he meant. For years, his children had discussed his belongings as though inheritance were merely delayed possession.
Ross wanted the truck.
Diane wanted Frank’s antique desk.
Both had complained when he sold the lake property instead of preserving it for them.
“They’ll argue,” I finally admitted.
Frank closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“For raising stubborn children?”
“For leaving you to deal with something I should have handled years ago.”
I touched his wrist.
“They love you.”
“I know.”
The sadness in his voice had unsettled me.
Then he opened his eyes.
“Love doesn’t automatically teach people how to treat everyone else.”
Standing in my living room after his funeral, I finally understood why he had said it.
Ross headed toward the dining room.
“Where’s Dad’s silver?”
“Stop.”
He turned.
“You are not opening drawers in my house.”
“Our father bought that silver.”
“My mother gave it to me.”
Diane rolled her eyes. “This could take all afternoon.”
Grief changed shape inside me.
Until then it had been a weight, enormous but dull.
Now it developed edges.
“What exactly do the two of you think is happening?”
Diane folded her arms.
“We’re trying to prevent arguments later.”
“By claiming my mother’s clock?”
Her eyes darted toward the mantel.
For an instant I saw something unexpected.
Not embarrassment.
Fear.
“I didn’t know it was hers.”
“You didn’t ask.”
She reached toward the clock.
I stepped between them.
“Don’t.”
The room quieted.
Nineteen years of swallowed insults seemed to gather behind that single word. I had endured jokes about being Frank’s second attempt at marriage. I had attended holidays where I was treated like an invited stranger. Ross still called this house “Dad’s place,” although my name was on the deed.
I tolerated it because Frank loved them.
He knew more than I admitted.
Perhaps he knew everything.
Ross broke the silence.
“Obviously you’ll keep what you need.”
My sister finally spoke.
“What she needs?”
He ignored her.
“One person doesn’t need an entire house full of Dad’s possessions.”
“One person?”
Ross waved vaguely.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” I said. “I believe I finally do.”
Diane changed tactics.
Her voice softened.
“We lost our father today.”
“I know.”
“We want things that remind us of him.”
“If you had asked me for something meaningful, we could have discussed it.”
Ross frowned.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You measured my television before asking how I was doing.”
His face reddened.
“That isn’t fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
Nobody answered.
Diane finally exhaled.
“All right. We should have waited.”
“Yes.”
“But the estate still has to be settled.”
“Yes.”
“And Dad’s property has to be identified.”
“Yes.”
She seemed encouraged until I continued.
“By the executor, using legal documents. Not by you two wandering through my house with sticky notes and a tape measure.”
Mrs. Hendricks hid a cough behind her napkin.
Diane’s expression hardened.
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend you’re innocent. You spent nineteen years convincing Dad that Ross and I were unreasonable.”
“I never had to convince him.”
Her cheeks flushed.
“See? That.”
“I will not fight with you during your father’s funeral reception.”
“Then stop acting like we’re stealing.”
I looked at her pink labels.
Then at Ross’s tape measure.
Neither of them followed my eyes.
Diane lifted her chin.
“Dad wanted us taken care of.”
“He did.”
My agreement surprised her.
“Then why are you making this difficult?”
“Because being taken care of is not the same as helping yourself to someone else’s belongings.”
Ross stepped toward me.
Before he could speak, the doorbell rang.
My sister went to answer it.
Suddenly I remembered several peculiar things Frank had asked during his final week.
Whether the front-door lock still stuck.
Whether I had dusted the brass bird.
Whether I would promise to hold the reception here rather than at church.
At the time, the questions seemed like fragments from a dying man’s wandering attention.
Now I wasn’t sure.
My sister opened the door.
A silver-haired man in a gray suit stood outside carrying a black briefcase.
“Mrs. Eileen Mercer?”
“That’s me.”
He entered.
Diane’s face drained of color.
Ross stopped moving.
They knew him.
I did not.
The stranger studied the room: funeral lilies, half-empty cups, pink labels, Ross’s tape measure.
His expression barely changed.
Yet I had the distinct impression that he had just found exactly what he expected.
“My name is Aaron Bell.”
Diane whispered, “No.”
Aaron looked at her.
“Yes.”
He placed his briefcase beside Frank’s recliner.
“Mrs. Mercer, your husband instructed me to arrive here at precisely two o’clock if certain things occurred after his funeral.”
The mantel clock clicked.
2:00.
“What things?”
Aaron looked at the pink square bearing Diane’s name.
Then at Ross.
Then at me.
“Exactly what I see in this room.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 2: Frank’s Hidden Instructions Turned Pink Labels Into Evidence, and Suddenly His Children Needed the Widow They Had Ignored for Years
An Hour After Frank’s Burial, His Children Began Marking My Possessions as Though the House Already Belonged to Them
Part 1 of 35
