THE FIRST CONFRONTATION FAILS TO FIX EVERYTHING
We met at a coffee place about halfway between the house and the hotel where Daniel was staying, which was itself a small thing that said something — he was staying at a hotel rather than at the house, which was available and also still contained all his late mother’s furniture and smell and the particular weight of that.
I arrived first. I had a folder with me, not the accordion file but a slim manila folder with selected documents: a summary sheet Maya had helped me put together, the roof invoices, the copy of Ruth’s handwritten note, and the estate summary showing the transfers.
Daniel came in five minutes late, in a fleece and jeans, looking tired in the way that grief makes people tired. He ordered a large coffee at the counter and came to the table and said “Hey” in a voice that had a lot of history in it.
“Hey,” I said.
We talked about nothing for a few minutes. He asked how the house was looking, meaning had I made progress on sorting things. I said I’d started on the kitchen. He nodded. His wife and kids had gone back home; he’d stayed to “deal with things,” which I noticed he said without seeming to notice that “dealing with things” had been my full-time occupation.
“I want to show you some things,” I said.
“Okay.”
I put the summary sheet on the table between us. “This is a record of the direct expenses I paid for the house and for Mom’s care over twelve years. Everything on there has documentation — invoices, bank statements, receipts. I’m not including lost earnings or unpaid labor hours, just actual cash that went out.”