Grant put a stack of flattened boxes on Mother’s kitchen table, covering the flower arrangements I had been comparing on my phone.
“Start with the cupboards,” he said. “Wrap the plates in towels. We don’t need to buy paper.”
I moved his boxes off my phone. Mother had died yesterday. Her funeral was three days away, and I still hadn’t chosen what would sit beside her coffin.
“I’m doing the flowers.”
“You can do that tonight. The house is sold.”
He said it while pulling a strip of tape from a dispenser. The sound went on longer than it needed to. I watched him fold the bottom flaps of a box, waiting for him to correct himself.
“What do you mean, sold?”
“Buyers. Paperwork. Sold, Claire.”
Mother had owned this house alone. Even after she’d gone into hospice, I’d pictured us coming back here slowly, opening one drawer at a time. There was half a packet of her biscuits clipped shut beside the kettle. I had eaten one that morning because I couldn’t work out breakfast.
“When were you going to tell me?”
“I’m telling you now. They get possession the day after the funeral. We have to get everything out.”
I pulled a chair away from the table and sat down. Grant kept standing, holding the empty box against his hip, as if I were delaying a delivery.
“Put that down,” I said.
He put it on the floor, impatiently enough that the loose flaps sprang open.
Mother had told me Grant held her financial power of attorney. He lived nearby; I came from another town. It had made sense that he could reach the bank or deal with a bill without waiting for me. I had thanked him for taking that on. Now I tried to remember exactly what she had said, and hated myself for not listening more carefully.
“Where’s the money?”
Grant rubbed a finger over a smear of adhesive on the tape dispenser.
“That’s been dealt with.”
“Which account?”
“She gave it to me.”
I looked at him. He stopped rubbing his finger.
“All of it?”
“Yes. She wanted me to have something for being here.”
Something. A house reduced to that little word, as though Mother had left him an extra helping at dinner.
“I was here too.”
“On visits.”
He didn’t raise his voice. That made it worse. I could have argued with shouting. Instead I remembered leaving on Sunday evenings while he stayed to sort out whatever couldn’t wait until my next visit. There were things he had done that I hadn’t. I knew that, and for a moment I let it keep me quiet.
Then I asked, “Did she write that down?”
“She told me. Apparently that isn’t good enough for you.”
“It isn’t an answer about the money.”
Grant went to his bag by the back door and took out a folded sheet. He spread it in front of me, smoothing the crease with his palm. It was a release. He pointed to the place for my signature before I had finished the first paragraph.
“This stops us dragging things out,” he said. “We can get through the funeral without a fight.”
I nearly reached for the pen. Not because I agreed. Because I wanted him to go back to being my brother, the person I could ask whether Mother would have hated the flowers I’d chosen. Signing offered a few minutes when neither of us would have to say anything ugly.
Instead, I took out my phone and called Victor, Mother’s estate lawyer.
Grant watched the screen, then stepped away from the table.
I told Victor what Grant had said. My voice sounded apologetic, which annoyed me enough to make me start again. This time I asked him to check the sale and the power of attorney. Victor asked for time to review the closing record and the document in his file. I stayed at the table until he called back.
Grant assembled two more boxes while we waited. I didn’t help.
“The sale closed two days before your mother died,” Victor told me. “It was at market price. Grant used a valid power of attorney authorizing him to sell the property.”
“So it’s really gone.”
“The sale appears legitimate, yes.”
I pressed my thumb into a nick along the table’s edge. I had wanted him to say Grant couldn’t have done it, that some missing signature would put the house back where it belonged. I hadn’t even asked whether the buyers had done anything wrong. I just wanted them out of the picture.
“And giving himself the money?”
