She was staying in a cramped, one-bedroom apartment on the edge of town, the kind of place where the hallways smelled like stale grease and the windows didn’t quite close right. I didn’t even bother to change out of my cleaning clothes; I just grabbed the box and drove.
When she opened the door, she was holding Rosie, who was fussy and red-faced from the heat. Martha looked exhausted, but when she saw me, her first instinct wasn’t anger. She looked worried.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I finally choked out. “I found the records, Martha. I saw what you did. You paid for that house. It’s more yours than it is mine.”
She looked at the box and then sighed, setting the baby down in a portable playpen. She sat at the table and ran her hand over the carved letters of my name. She told me that Silas was so proud of me and that he was heartbroken that his illness was going to leave me with a mess to clean up.
“He wanted you to have a foundation,” she whispered. “I loved him, Elena. And because I loved him, I loved the person he loved most in the world. I didn’t want you to look at me and see someone who took your father’s money. I wanted you to see a home.
” I realized then that I had spent years guarding my heart against a woman who had been standing guard over my future. I had been so focused on what I thought I was owed that I couldn’t see what was being given.
I didn’t ask her to move back in as a tenant. I told her that the house belonged to both of us, and that Rosie deserved to grow up in a place with a yard and the sounds of the Victorian floorboards. It took some convincing—Martha is stubborn when it comes to being a burden—but eventually, she agreed. We spent the next week moving her things back in, but this time, I was the one carrying the heavy boxes.
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