“Just some stray mail,” I said. I handed her the silver-lettered envelope through the slats of the gate. “Marisol seems to have sent you a card.”
Dorothy squinted at the return address, her brow furrowing as she adjusted her grip on the wood. “Your sister? I have not seen her since the funeral, and she barely spoke to me then. Why would she write to me now?”
“I was hoping you might know,” I said, looking down at the dahlia beds where the dry stalks had already been cut back to the soil. “She has been calling our parents every Tuesday night.”
Dorothy tapped the corner of the envelope against her palm, the sound small and dry. “She always did have a dramatic way about her. Cecille used to say Marisol could turn a trip to the grocery store into a three-act play.”
“The probate court opens the estate files next week,” I said.
Dorothy looked at the envelope again, then tucked it into her apron pocket. “Well, we shall see what she has to say for herself.”
I crossed the street to Priya’s porch, slid her envelope into her black mailbox, and walked back to my grandmother’s craftsman bungalow.
Inside the kitchen, the air was cold. The house had been empty since August, and the smell of cedar shavings and old wax lingered in the corners. On the oak side table sat a small, framed photograph of Cecille standing in her garden, her silver hair windblown, holding a basket of yellow dahlias.
I set the old copper teakettle on the stove and turned the gas knob, watching the blue flame flare up around the metal bottom.
My mind went back to three months ago, to the corner room of the Elmwood Assisted Living Center. The room had been small, smelling of lavender water and white soap, with a window that looked out over a gravel parking lot.
