“I won’t be signing anything today, Madeline.”

That stopped her cold.

She looked at the envelope, then at me, and something behind her face started doing arithmetic.

“Gregory always did like that you were a lawyer,” she said.

“He used to say it gave the family a respectable face.”

She turned back to her clipboard and didn’t say it a second time.

The movers carried my old dresser down the ramp right past me, and I stood there holding the two garment bags, listening to the hangers clack against each other.

The financial schedule arrived by courier at seven that evening.