Gerald’s daughter called me in June.
Her name was Claire.
She was thirty-six and lived outside Raleigh.
We had met at Ruth’s funeral, but only briefly.
“I hope this isn’t strange,” she said.
“It is a little.”
She laughed nervously.
“Dad gave me your number.”
“That explains the strangeness.”
She wanted to visit.
Not because of the estate.
Her distribution had already been made.
She wanted to know her grandmother better.
That request bothered me at first.
Ruth was not a museum exhibit.
I told Claire so.
“I’m not asking for secrets.”
“What are you asking for?”
“Stories.”
So she came on a Saturday.
She brought her eight-year-old daughter, June.
June wore purple sneakers and asked within five minutes whether Ruth had ghosts in her house.
“No,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“Ruth would have charged them rent.”
June accepted that.
We sat on my porch with lemonade.
Claire asked what Ruth liked.
Crossword puzzles.
Peppermint candy.
Baseball on the radio.
People who returned borrowed dishes.
She asked what Ruth hated.
Being called “young lady” by men under sixty.
Overcooked green beans.
Automatic phone menus.
People moving her belongings without permission.
Claire smiled.
“Dad does that last one.”
“Your father inherited several things.”
Then she asked about the money.
I put down my glass.
“What did Gerald tell you?”
“That he used Grandma’s accounts for expenses that weren’t hers. That he paid the estate back. That he challenged the will because he blamed you.”
“That is accurate.”
“Was he awful to her?”
The question was too simple.
“No.”
Claire looked surprised.
“He did something awful. More than once. That’s not the same as every part of their relationship being awful.”
She waited.
“Ruth loved him.”
“Even after?”
“Yes.”
“Did she forgive him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were with her all the time.”
“That doesn’t give me access to everything inside her.”
June was drawing on the sidewalk with chalk.
Claire watched her.
“I’m angry at Dad.”
“You’re allowed.”
“He says he’s changed.”
“He has changed some things.”
“Do you trust him?”
There it was.
The question people kept trying to turn into a verdict.
“I trust him to drive me to physical therapy.”
Claire laughed despite herself.
“That specific?”
“Yes.”
“I trust him to show up when he says he will more often than I used to. I trust him not to touch my finances because he has no access to them. I trust him to tell the truth more quickly than he once did.”
“That’s not the same as trusting him completely.”
“No.”
“Do you think I should?”
“I think you should decide based on your relationship with your father, not mine.”
She stared at me.
“You’re frustrating.”
“Your father says that too.”
Later, I gave Claire a copy of Ruth’s biscuit recipe.
“The bad biscuits?”
“You heard about those?”
“Dad is offended on Grandma’s behalf.”
“He should be. The recipe is terrible.”
June insisted we make them.
We did.
They were still terrible.
Gerald arrived near dinner to pick up Claire and June.
He bit into one biscuit and smiled.
“Perfect.”
Claire and I looked at each other.
Then we both started laughing.
“What?” Gerald asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
For one minute, Ruth’s absence was not the loudest thing in the room.
That mattered too.
Claire visited again in the fall.
This time she came alone.
She had spoken with Gerald about the account misuse.
The conversation had not gone smoothly.
“He keeps saying he paid it back.”
“He did.”
“As if that ends it.”
“It ends one part.”
“What part?”
“The debt to the estate.”
“And the rest?”
I poured tea.
“That belongs to the people involved.”
She looked frustrated.
“I want you to tell me whether to forgive him.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because then whatever you decide becomes my decision.”
She stared at the steam rising from her cup.
“Grandma forgave people, didn’t she?”
“Sometimes.”
“Dad?”
“I don’t know.”
“You really don’t?”
“No.”
It seemed to disappoint her.
People preferred the dead to leave clear instructions.
Forgive him.
Don’t forgive him.
Keep the house.
Sell the house.
Love each other.
Stay away.
Ruth had left legal documents because property required instructions.
Relationships were different.
Claire eventually said, “I love him.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I’m still angry.”
“That’s allowed too.”
She looked up.
“That’s inconvenient.”
“Families often are.”
Before she left, I gave her a photograph of Ruth at fifty-three holding her bookkeeping certificate.
Claire had never seen it.
On the back, Ruth had written one sentence.
Took me long enough.
Claire smiled through tears.
“Maybe that’s the family motto.”
I thought of Gerald.
“Could be.”
Later that year, Claire invited me to June’s school play.
I hesitated because I was not family.
Claire disagreed.
“You are to me.”
I did not correct her.
Gerald and Linda sat two seats away from me in the auditorium.
June played a tree.
She had one line.
She delivered it too loudly and looked delighted with herself.
Afterward, Gerald bought everyone ice cream.
When the bill came, he paused and looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Gerald.”
He smiled.
“I was remembering how much trouble started because I thought paying made me entitled to make decisions.”
I looked at the melting ice cream in front of him.
“This is twelve dollars.”
“I know.”
“Pay the bill.”
He laughed and did.
Claire watched us with an expression that said she understood more than June did.
That was fine.
Children did not need every adult mistake explained to them in real time.
June only needed her grandfather to clap when she played a tree.
He had.
June’s school play was not the last time I found myself inside Gerald’s family without quite knowing what to call my place there.
I attended Claire’s birthday dinner the next year.
Linda saved me a chair beside her.
Gerald’s son, Matthew, drove me home because Anne had a migraine.
Nobody introduced me as Ruth’s neighbor.
Nobody introduced me as family either.
I was just Martha.
That suited me.
On the drive, Matthew asked whether his father had always been difficult.
“No.”
He laughed.
“That was fast.”
“He was probably a delightful infant.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. People change.”
Matthew drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Dad tells us everything now.”
“Everything?”
“Too much, honestly.”
I smiled.
“He’s trying not to hide things.”
“I know. Sometimes I want him to hide a little.”
“That is a different problem.”
At my condominium later, I thought about the family damage that came from extremes.
Gerald had once hidden too much.
Now he sometimes confessed every passing worry as proof of honesty.
Balance took practice.
The next Tuesday, I told him.
“Your children are not your conscience.”
“What did Matthew say?”
“Nothing important.”
“Martha.”
“Do the work yourself. Tell them what affects them. Don’t make them monitor whether you are becoming a good person.”
He was quiet for a while.
“Okay.”
That simple okay felt like another small repair.
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: The First Time Gerald Asked Me for Help, I Refused to Let Money Become Our Language Again
The Morning Gerald Arrived With a Lawyer and Accused Me of Buying His Mother’s Will
Part 10 of 16
