“Thank you.”
“And Margaret?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t decide what the house means until you decide what you want your life to mean without Robert.”
That sentence followed me long after we hung up.
I remained in his chair for several minutes.
Then the doorbell rang.
It was Gertrude.
Of course it was Gertrude.
She stood on my porch wearing gardening gloves and the particular expression neighbors use when they know something is wrong but are determined to pretend they came over for an innocent reason.
“I have too many tomatoes,” she announced.
She held up a basket containing exactly three tomatoes.
I looked at them.
Then at her.
“Your garden produced too many of three tomatoes?”
She sighed.
“Margaret, I saw what happened.”
Heat climbed my neck.
“I figured.”
“So did half the street.”
“That makes it better.”
“It should. Nobody thinks poorly of you.”
“I didn’t say they did.”
