She was my mother-in-law.
My husband worked long hours.
Her other children lived elsewhere.
Someone had to do it.
That was how people explained us.
But the truth was more complicated.
Margaret had entered my life as a stubborn woman who did not want my help.
She left it as someone I loved enough to miss every day.
And the pillow?
The pillow turned out to be the last decision she ever made about her own life.
Not a reward.
Not revenge.
A decision.
Her children would spend the next year trying to prove otherwise.
Margaret had never been wealthy.
At least, that was what everyone believed.
She and her husband, Samuel Bennett, had raised four children outside Willow Creek on a small farm that grew corn, beans, and hay depending on the year.
Samuel died before I ever met him.
A machinery accident.
Margaret was forty-seven.
She raised four children alone after that.
