Mom’s fingers tightened around the handles of the black garbage bags she had taken back from me to make room in the hall.

For the first time since the moving truck arrived, she seemed unsure what to say.

Richard opened his briefcase.

“Samuel left instructions concerning the property,” he said.

“You will hear them, and then we will determine how to proceed without anyone removing belongings or threatening Clara.”

I felt the old impulse to apologize for inconveniencing people.

Grandpa had worked hard to help me unlearn it, but grief had brought it back.

I folded my hands around the cold coffee mug and waited.