"People make mistakes in wills," Helen said, and the sentence was so small, so hopeful, that Diane almost hated it for existing. "Robert was on so much medication. Maybe he meant to leave her something small. A watch. Money for a trip. Lawyers get names wrong."
"The lawyer didn't get the name wrong. Dad signed this two years ago. Two years, Mom. Before the cancer. Before the nurse."
Helen went still in a way Diane had not seen since the hospital corridor, when the oncologist said months instead of years and Helen had nodded as if nodding could bargain time back into the room.
"Two years," Helen whispered.
They read the will again, line by line, as if repetition might reveal a kinder grammar. Robert Marsh, of sound mind. Specific bequests: the blue Chevrolet to Diane; the savings accounts split between Helen and Diane according to percentages that looked, on paper, almost fair; the life insurance to Helen; the retirement accounts already named and settled. And then the house. The house that had been Helen's address for forty-one years, the house where Diane had learned to ride a bike in the driveway and come home from college with laundry and opinions, the house whose kitchen still smelled faintly of the coffee Robert made every morning until he could no longer stand at the counter.
To Margaret Ellison.
No explanation. No letter attached. No "in recognition of services rendered." Just the name, and the property, and the quiet violence of a signature.
Diane stood again and paced to the mantel. She picked up the photograph from 1984 — Helen in a red swimsuit, Robert with his arm around her, both of them squinting into sun that had believed in forever. "Did Dad ever mention her before the cancer? Ever?"