Noah did not move. He stared at the screen, his fingers remaining locked on the plastic dial.
“She died that night,” I whispered. “She didn’t leave us, Noah. She didn’t pack a bag and walk out on a Tuesday morning like Clara said.”
Noah turned his head slowly, the green light of the screen reflecting in his eyes. “Clara told us she left because she couldn’t handle two babies.”
I cleared my throat, the dry tightness in my throat making it hard to speak. “If she died in Greenfield, there would have been an estate probate. There would have been a record of whatever she left behind.”
Noah switched off the projector, and the green light vanished, plunging the small corner of the basement into grey twilight.
“We need to ask Grandma Ruth,” he said.
We drove down Elm Lane at two in the afternoon. The sky had turned the color of wet slate, and the wind off the cornfields was dragging dry oak leaves across the asphalt. Grandma Ruth’s small white cottage sat behind a row of overgrown boxwoods, its gutters sagging slightly at the corners.
