Chapter 14 - THE LAST THING HELEN HAD WRITTENEllen brought me another notebook.
Helen's.
I almost refused to open it.
Dead people had already caused enough conversations.
Then I saw the date.
Three weeks before she died.
Her handwriting was weak.
One page concerned Brian.
He came today. Worried about business again. Walter wants to help. I told both of them no.
I smiled.
Of course she had.
Then:
Brian got angry but came back an hour later and apologized. There is a good man in him. He is just too frightened of failure.
My eyes filled.
Below:
Walter mistakes rescuing him for believing in him. I wish they could both see the difference.
I had to stop reading.
That sentence belonged to me as much as Brian.
I called him.
“Can you come over Sunday?”
He hesitated.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes.”
When he arrived, I showed him the notebook.
He read quietly.
At:
There is a good man in him
his face collapsed.
Brian covered his eyes.
“I don't deserve that.”
I looked at my son.
“That's not how love works.”
He cried harder.
Then:
“She knew.”
“Most things.”
“She would've hated what I did.”
“Yes.”
I didn't soften it.
He nodded.
Then read:
Walter mistakes rescuing him for believing in him.
He looked up.
“She called you out too.”
“Your mother was efficient.”
He almost smiled.
We talked for two hours.
Not about money mostly.
About Helen.
Her terrible singing.
Her obsession with labeling freezer containers.
The way she would not let anybody leave her kitchen without food.
Brian told me he sometimes dreamed she was still alive and he'd forgotten to call her.
I had the same dream.
At the end, he asked:
“Do you wish she'd left you more instructions?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I spent the first year after she died trying to live according to what she would've wanted.”
“And?”
“She was dead.”
Brian looked startled.
“I loved her.”
I closed the notebook.
“But surviving someone means eventually making choices they didn't write for you.”
That included what happened between Brian and me.
Helen could warn us.
She could not decide whether I should trust him again.
No dead wife.
No therapist.
May you like
No repayment schedule.
That answer belonged to time.
