She had not come to persuade me.

She had come to collect.

My heart was pounding, but I kept my hands folded calmly over the pages, and I made my voice gentle and tired and old.

“Shirley, dear,” I said.

“Would you give me just a day to think this over?

My head simply isn’t in the right place for legal documents today.

You understand.

I kept my voice soft and uncertain, the voice of a woman too overwhelmed to think straight, because that was the woman Shirley needed me to be and a frightened helpless widow was the safest thing for me to appear in that moment.