The Notebook on Evelyn’s Nightstand
The first was that it was not mine. It was the only record there was of the last six years of Evelyn’s life. Every word she said worth keeping was in it. Her daughters had missed those years, for reasons that were theirs, and they were never going to get them any other way. A mother’s last years ought to belong to her children. And I will not pretend I was a saint about it. I thought her children ought to have to read them.
The second was that there was one page I could not give up.
I tore it out, careful, along the spiral. I folded it and put it in my Bible. Then I put the notebook in my big purse so I would not lose my nerve, and I carried it to the visitation and to the funeral and to the lunch.
So it was already in my bag when Janet asked for the key. I want that understood. I did not think it up at the table to get back at anybody.
I got my key ring out first.
Evelyn’s key had a dab of red nail polish on the head so I could find it in the dark. I worked it around the ring with my thumbnail. My hands were not steady and that ring is tight.
Janet watched me do it. Paula looked at the centerpiece.
I laid the key on the white paper in front of them.
“There’s a spare under the third brick by the back steps,” I said. “You’ll want that one too. And the neighbor has one, Kim, in the gray house. She’s the one who found your mom at the sink.”
Janet’s mouth moved. I do not think she had known there was a Kim.
Then I took the notebook out of my purse and set it down beside the key.
It did not look like much. The green cover had gone soft and white at the corners. There was a coffee ring on the front, and a strip of silver duct tape down the spine where the wire had started to pull through around the fourth year. It was thick as a phone book from being opened so many times.
“This was on her nightstand,” I said. “It ought to stay with the family.”
Paula pulled her glasses down out of her hair and looked at it without touching it.
“What is it?” she said. And then, careful, “Is this a bill, Lori? Because the estate isn’t really in a position.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not a bill.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s your mother. It’s every day since the stroke. I wrote it down.”
I picked up the envelope with the gift card in it, because leaving it on the table would have been making a point, and I was not there to make one. I put it in my purse. I pushed back my folding chair.
“I’m going to go help Donna with the coffee,” I said.
I had gone about four steps when I heard the cover open.
I did go and help Donna with the coffee. I stood at the counter and filled the little foam cups and lined them on a tray, and I did not look around for most of a minute.
Donna looked for me. Donna is seventy-four and has run the funeral lunches at that church since before I joined it.
“What did you give that girl?” she said, low. “She’s gone white as that tablecloth.”
I turned around.
Janet had the notebook open flat in front of her with both hands on it. She was not turning pages. She was reading one page, and her lips were moving a little, the way Evelyn’s used to when she read her devotional. Paula was leaned in at her shoulder.