Chapter 2 - THE FUNERAL HE WANTED TO CONTROL
Marcus wanted the memorial postponed for three weeks.
He claimed important investors could not reach Phoenix sooner. He suggested a private cremation followed by a “proper celebration of life” at one of the resorts his company represented.
Margaret had left written instructions with Desert Haven Funeral Home years earlier. She wanted a simple service at her Episcopal church in Scottsdale, followed by burial beside her husband.
I scheduled it for Saturday.
“You’re making decisions without me,” Marcus said in the funeral director’s office.
“I’m following your mother’s decisions.”
Tessa waited outside in a rental car. Marcus had introduced her at the hospital as an employee who happened to be attending the same conference in Hawaii.
He did not attempt to explain why they had shared a resort suite.
At home, I placed Margaret’s medication organizer in a kitchen drawer and removed the hospital blanket from the back seat of my car. Small tasks kept me from calling Marcus every name I had swallowed during twenty-two years of marriage.
The silver key stayed in my pocket.
It did not fit Margaret’s desk, jewelry box, filing cabinet, or the old cedar chest at the foot of her bed. It was too small for a house lock and too modern for her antique furniture.
Then I remembered the envelope she had made me retrieve from Sonoran Community Credit Union the previous spring.
Margaret had suffered a minor fall. Marcus was out of town, and she wanted her insurance card from a safe-deposit box. She refused to let me enter the viewing room with her.
When she returned, she had pinned something inside her bra and laughed when I asked whether she had robbed the bank.
“A woman should keep one thing nobody can take while she’s sleeping,” she said.
The credit union confirmed that Margaret had rented a box in her name. I could not access it simply because I possessed the key. Her executor had to present a death certificate and the estate documents.
The executor was not Marcus.
It was me.
Marcus discovered that fact during the funeral-home meeting.
“My mother changed the paperwork?” he demanded.
“Four months ago.”
“She wasn’t competent four months ago.”
“She passed two capacity evaluations.”
His face tightened. Those evaluations had been requested after he repeatedly tried to persuade Margaret to sign a broad financial power of attorney.
I had assumed he was preparing for her declining health.
Now I remembered how angry he became when she refused.
That evening, Tessa came to the house alone.
She stood on the porch with her arms folded against the desert cold.
“Don’t let Marcus know when you open that box,” she said.
“You were sleeping with my husband while his mother was dying.”
“I know.”
“Then you have about five seconds to explain why I shouldn’t close this door.”
May you like
Tessa looked toward the driveway.
“Because Margaret knew about us,” she said. “And the affair wasn’t the secret she was trying to protect you from.”
