“You know, we don’t have that kind of money available,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I need a few days.”
I hung up and sat in the quiet of my living room, the living room of the house I had purchased, in the neighborhood I had chosen, with the furniture I had picked out and paid for.
And I made a decision.
Not out of cruelty, not out of anger exactly, though the anger was there underneath, steady and clean.
I made it out of clarity.
Something had come into focus that had been blurred for a very long time.
I called Patricia again the next morning.
I told her I wanted to review everything.
The joint accounts, the house title, the car registrations, the credit cards.
I wanted to understand exactly what was mine, what was ours, and what was his.
I wanted that picture completely clear before I made any further decisions about the funeral or anything else.
She had the summary to me by end of day.
The house was in my name.
I had insisted on that when we bought it, a small instinct I had never fully examined, but had followed anyway.
The joint checking account had about $6,000 in it.
The savings, substantial, accumulated carefully over 10 years, was a solo account in my name.
The credit cards were mine.
