One evening, I brought over a casserole as a thank-you.
They were inseparable.
Eleanor invited me in.
I watched Sophie chase a butterfly across the lawn through the kitchen window.
“You have no idea what you’ve done for her,” I said. “She hasn’t been this happy since her dad.”
Eleanor wiped her hands on a dish towel slowly.
She looked out at Sophie for a long moment before answering.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “I think I do.”
“You have no idea what you’ve done,”
There was something in her voice that I couldn’t place.
Not pride.
Not pity.
Something heavier.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that grief recognizes grief, dear. I lost people too.”
I let it go.
I shouldn’t have, but I did.
People said strange things when they were old and lonely.
I was just grateful Sophie had her.
Four months later, Eleanor died in her sleep.
Sophie cried so hard she made herself sick.
Eleanor died in her sleep.
I held her on the bathroom floor at two in the morning.
I felt the world tilt out from under us all over again.
First she’d lost her father, and now Eleanor.
I thought that was the end of it.
A quiet funeral, a sold house, a memory.
Then Eleanor’s lawyer called and said she’d left something specifically for Sophie.
I thought that was the end of it.
A wooden box, he said.
Her instructions were very clear that I should open it first.
That should’ve been my first red flag.
The lawyer arrived on a Tuesday afternoon.
He was a thin man in a wrinkled suit.
He held the wooden box against his chest like it weighed more than it did.
“Eleanor was very specific,” he said at my door. “This belongs to Sophie. But she wanted you to open it first.”
I took the box and felt the smooth grain under my fingers.
It was lighter than I expected.
“Did she say why?”
“Only that you’d understand once you looked inside.”
“She wanted you to open it first.”
I waited until Sophie was at her friend’s house.
The kitchen was quiet, the late sun cutting yellow lines across the table.
