“Your mother would have liked how you put that.”

I gave a sad smile.

“She should have taught me earlier.”

PART 6

Three days after the funeral, I went to the bank where Patrick had worked for close to forty years.

I didn’t go to accuse him across a teller’s counter.

I went to ask the kind of dull, practical questions that grief had made me forget: which accounts were Joanne’s, which papers belonged to the estate, and who had the right to see them.

The manager, a patient woman named Meredith Cole, told me I would need formal paperwork before the bank could discuss any account details.