He thought I was a lonely old man with nowhere else to go.
He had no idea what was inside the folder my lawyer would place on the table when their moving truck arrived.
I was sixty-one, recently retired, and finally living in the house I had built with my own hands twenty-two years earlier.
Every stone in the chimney had passed through my palms. The porch railing still carried a pale groove from the afternoon my saw kicked back and split my thumb. My late wife, Ellen, had chosen the blue tiles behind the kitchen stove.
That house was not extra space.
It was the last place in the world where I still felt close to her.
Daniel called on a Thursday evening while chili simmered on the stove.
“Claire’s parents are coming up this weekend,” he said.
I looked through the kitchen window at the pines bending under an October wind.
“Coming up where?”
“To the mountain house. Their condo is being renovated.”
“How long?”
“A few weeks. Maybe a month.”
“You didn’t ask me.”
He sighed as if I were a difficult employee.
“They’re family, Dad.”
“They’re your in-laws.”
“You’re sitting alone in a four-bedroom house while people need help.”
“There are two bedrooms.”
“There’s a loft.”
“It’s a storage loft.”
“Whatever. You have space.”
Then he delivered the sentence that changed everything.
“They’ll be there Saturday. Claire already told them. If you don’t like it, go back to the city.”
I stared at the scar on my thumb.
