What My Mother Hid in the Recipe Box

I opened the envelope with a butter knife so I would not tear it. There were three sheets, written on both sides. It was dated the nineteenth of October.

I am going to put down what it said as near as I can. I know it by heart now.

Dear Robin,

This has taken me three evenings and you kept coming in to check on me, so if it wanders, that is your fault.

By now Mr. Aldridge has read you the will and you are hurt. I am sorry for that. I could not see a way to do this that did not hurt you first, because if I had told you to your face you would have talked me out of it. You always could.

I left the house to Michelle because I want you free of it.

I know you. If that house came to you, you would stay in it. You would keep the oil in it and the snow off it and you would be out in the yard at seventy with your father’s rake, all by yourself, because it was mine and you would think leaving it was leaving me. It is a good house but it is a hungry one. It has had nine years of you. It does not get any more.

Michelle can afford to own it for a little while, and she will have sense enough to sell it, because she does not love it. That is why it goes to her. It is not because I love her more. I ought to have said that out loud to both of you a long time ago.

The five hundred dollars is the first month’s rent on a place with stairs you do not have to shovel. I asked Kim about the rooms over the store. She says they are empty and she will hold them and keep her mouth shut. Take them. You can walk to work in your slippers.

Now the book. It is in your name with mine, the way the girl at the bank told me to do it so that it goes to you and to nobody else and does not pass through the lawyer. Every month since I took sick, your sister has sent me a check for three hundred dollars. She thinks it went to the oil. I never told her different and I never spent one dime of it, because you would not let me pay for anything anyhow. I put every check in that book. It is Michelle’s money and it was always meant to be yours. I only held it.

Do not be sore at her for staying away. I told her to, more than once. I did not want her to see me like this. I did not want anybody to. I let you see because you were the one I could stand to have see me, and I know what that cost you, and it was the meanest thing I ever did and the truest compliment I ever paid anyone.

I heard you every night. I knew when you were standing in the door. I did not always let on, but I knew.

Go and have some life now. Make the coffee cake for Walt, he has been hinting for years. It is filed under W, for Walt.

Your loving Mother

I read it there at the table. Then I got up and stood at the sink for a while with the water running, though I did not need the water for anything.