“You need to be out before dark, Susan.”

Melissa said it while I was still wearing the black dress I had worn to my son’s funeral.

Two old suitcases were standing beside the front door.

Mine.

I looked from them to my daughter-in-law.

“Out?”

“I think it’s better if we make this clean.”

Behind her, the house looked exactly as it had that morning. Brian’s jacket still hung from the brass hook near the mudroom. His coffee mug was beside the sink. A sympathy arrangement from his office sat on the kitchen island, white lilies already beginning to droop.

My son had been buried less than four hours earlier.

I had lived in that house for years.

Brian had asked me to move in after my husband died. At first, it was supposed to be temporary. Then Brian and Melissa started traveling more for work, and I became part of the household.

I cooked. I handled groceries. I waited for repairmen. I stayed up with Brian after his shoulder surgery.

None of that made the house mine.

I knew that.

But I hadn’t expected to become a visitor before the flowers from his funeral had wilted.

“Where am I supposed to go?”

Melissa folded her arms.

“The cabin.”

I stared at her.

Brian owned an old cabin several miles outside Pine Creek. He had bought it years earlier and talked occasionally about fixing it up.

As far as I knew, he never had.

“That place doesn’t have running water.”

“It has a well.”

“The pump doesn’t work.”

Melissa looked toward the window.

“Then you’ll need to have someone look at it.”

That was when I understood this wasn’t an emotional decision made on the worst day of our lives.

She had already packed my things.

She had already decided where I was going.

I picked up the smaller suitcase.

Then I stopped.

On the console table was a framed photograph of Brian at thirty-two, standing beside Lake Michigan with his sleeves rolled up and his hair blowing across his forehead.

I reached for it.

Melissa stepped between me and the table.

“Leave that.”

My hand stayed in the air.

“It’s a picture of my son.”

“It’s part of the house.”

For a few seconds, neither of us moved.

“Melissa.”

“Please don’t make today harder than it already is.”

I lowered my hand.

That sentence almost made me laugh.

Instead, I took both suitcases outside.

The Cabin Brian Never Finished

Melissa drove me there herself.

The road narrowed until pavement became gravel, then dirt.

Neither of us spoke.

The cabin appeared between tall pines about forty minutes later. The porch sagged slightly on one side. One window had a crack running from the top corner almost to the center.

Melissa opened the trunk.

“The keys are in the front pocket of your suitcase.”

I looked at the cabin.

“Have you been inside?”

“Not recently.”

“Is the electricity connected?”

She hesitated.

That answered me.

I pulled my suitcases out.

Melissa remained behind the wheel.

“Brian would not have wanted this.”

She gripped the steering wheel.

“Brian isn’t here to decide anymore.”

Then she drove away.

I stood in the dirt with one suitcase in each hand.

That image stayed with me.

Not Melissa’s car disappearing.

Not the funeral.

Two suitcases containing what somebody else had decided was enough of my life to keep.

Inside, the cabin smelled of dust and damp wood.

The faucet gave me nothing.

The lights didn’t work.

There was an old woodstove, a narrow bed, a table, two chairs and several shelves covered with dust.

I sat on the edge of the bed until it became dark.

For most of that first night, I was angry at Melissa.

Sometime after midnight, I became angry at Brian.

That was harder.

There had been signs.

Melissa would correct me at dinner as though I were a child. She once moved my belongings from the downstairs bathroom into a basket because guests were coming.

Brian always noticed.

“Mom, just let it go.”

Or:

“She doesn’t mean it like that.”

Once, after Melissa told me I was becoming too comfortable in their home, Brian found me folding towels in the laundry room.

He stood in the doorway.

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Don’t.”

“Mom—”

“I don’t want you fighting with your wife because of me.”

He looked relieved.

I remembered that relief now.

I had protected him from having to choose.

He had allowed me to.

By morning, I was tired of sitting still.

I found a broom in a closet and started cleaning.

Around ten, I reached the far corner of the main room.

That was where I found something I recognized.

A small wooden prayer table.

Brian had built it in his garage years ago after my husband died. Nothing fancy. Dark wood, slightly uneven legs, a shallow shelf underneath.

I had forgotten Brian moved it to the cabin.

I wiped the dust away with my sleeve.

“What were you doing out here, Brian?”

The cabin, naturally, gave me no answer.

There was an iron candleholder on the floor nearby. I picked it up, intending to place it on the table.

It slipped from my hand.

The iron base struck the floor.

Clang.

Then something underneath answered.

A hollow sound.

I froze.

I picked up the candleholder and dropped it again, this time deliberately.

Clang.

Hollow.

I moved the prayer table aside.

A thin straight line ran between two floorboards.

Too straight.

I knelt and ran my fingernail along it.

One board lifted slightly.

Under the Floor

It took me almost twenty minutes and a flathead screwdriver to pry it up.

Underneath was a shallow compartment.

Inside sat a gray metal box.

My name was written across a strip of masking tape on the lid.

SUSAN.

I didn’t open it immediately.

I knew that handwriting.

Brian always made his S too large.

My hands began shaking.

The box wasn’t locked.

Inside were several documents held together with binder clips, a ring of keys and a sealed envelope.

On the envelope:

MOM.

I sat on the floor.

For several minutes, I only held it.

Then I opened it.

Mom,