Margaret, for her part, wrote a letter — actual paper, actual ink — and left it in the kitchen for Daniel and Allison to find together. The letter said she had updated her will to reflect the new living arrangement. It said she was grateful. It said she was still angry, sometimes, about the morning at Cedar Ridge, and that the anger lived alongside the gratitude the way two weather systems can occupy the same sky. It said she did not want them to mistake her staying for surrender or her occasional sharpness for regret. It said: Keep talking. Even when it is ugly. Especially when it is ugly. Silence is how suitcases arrive.
Allison cried reading it. Daniel folded it and put it in the strongbox with the deed and the birth certificates, which was his way of crying without using his face.
The seasons turned. Summer brought a window air conditioner for Margaret's room and a backyard barbecue where neighbors asked how Margaret was settling in and Margaret said she was settling in like tea, slowly, and then stronger. Autumn brought the anniversary of the suitcase night. No one mentioned it at dinner. After the children were in bed, Daniel found Allison on the back steps with a glass of wine looking at the dark yard.
"I still see it," Allison said without preamble. "The foyer. Her face. The way you looked at me."
"I still hear it," Daniel said. He sat beside her. The wood of the steps was cool through his jeans. "Ask your wife."