I show up now for strangers, in her name, and every time I do I feel her somewhere close, that sharp watchful patient soul, nodding once, the way she used to, at something done right.

My husband’s brothers and his sister do not speak to us anymore.

They are bitter about the fortune they feel was stolen from them, though nothing was stolen — it was only, for once, given to the right person.

I find that I carry no anger toward them, and no regret.

The anger burned off somewhere in those first six months and left behind only a kind of clear, quiet peace, the same peace I had felt standing in that doorway with the key in my hand.

Sometimes, on a summer evening, I do exactly what she asked me to do.