You swallow hard and keep reading.
The money I owed you for weekly cleaning has been carefully recorded with Mr. Greer. You will be paid every dollar of it, with interest. But that is not the real reason for this letter.
Years ago, after Arthur died, I began to understand my children in a way no mother wants to. They loved me, I think, as people love family photographs and inherited silver. Fondly, at a distance, most intensely when others are watching. They are not monsters. That would be simpler. They are merely people to whom comfort became more important than closeness, and then more important than honesty.
By the time you reach the bottom of the second page, Marcus is no longer pretending. He sits across from you silently, cereal forgotten, because your expression must already be telling him this is no ordinary thank-you note.
Mrs. Mercer writes that after several ugly disputes with her children over the house, she changed her will years earlier. Not rashly, she emphasizes, nor under undue influence, but after a long conversation with Harold Greer and a doctor who documented her competence thoroughly. She suspected her children would not visit more because she needed them. She suspected they would visit more when they sensed an ending. She was right.
