Ruth's old trailer sat at the end of a gravel road. I dragged my suitcase up the warped steps and stood in the kitchen for a long while, just listening to the faucet drip. My sister had been gone for four years, but her dish towels still hung on the oven handle.
I had nowhere to go.
Ruth had left the trailer to me when she passed, and I'd been paying the lot rent ever since out of habit, never imagining I'd need it.
***
The first nights were the hardest. I slept in the housecoat that my high school sweetheart had bought me because it still smelled faintly of his aftershave. I cried in a way I hadn't cried since Howard's death.
***
On the third morning, I took my phone and called the mansion. Margaret answered.
"It's Eleanor," I said. "Please. I just want the picture from the mantel, the one of him fishing. I'll pay for the shipping."
