Partway through the conversation, Carol said: “How are things going with the estate?”
I told her, briefly and carefully, about what was happening. Not the invoice — I didn’t want her in the middle of that. But the process.
“I didn’t realize you’d been paying for so many things,” she said. There was something careful in her voice.
“Over the years it added up.”
A pause. “I think I might have had the wrong idea about how the arrangement worked.”
“You were seeing it from a distance.”
“Still.” Another pause. “I said something to you, at the reception. About getting your own place.”
“You said something about fresh starts.”
“I think I might have implied—” She stopped. “I didn’t mean to be dismissive of what you did for her.”
“I know.”
“She talked about you all the time, you know. Not in a — not in a pitying way. In a proud way. She used to tell me how organized you were, how you’d caught a medication interaction her doctor missed. She would say ‘Claire handled it’ and it meant something good.”
I sat with that for a moment.
“She was sometimes better at saying things to other people,” I said.
“I know she was. That was Ruth.”
We talked a little longer and then Carol had to go, something with her grandchildren. Before she hung up she said: “I’m glad you have those records, sweetheart. I really am.”
I thought about that for a while after I hung up. Glad you have those records. It was an odd thing to be glad about. But it was also exactly right.