The Will
In February of 2020 I had a stent put in at the heart hospital in Lincoln. It was a small one, a fifteen-minute procedure, they said. But I came out of it gray and scared, and Garrett, who works claims for an insurance company and thinks in terms of what happens when a man dies, drove me home and sat across from me and said, “Pop, have you got the house taken care of?”
I said Elinor was not going to put his sisters out in the road. He said, “I’m sure she isn’t. But Dad, what if she has a stroke, or remarries, or her kids get ideas?” I did not like it, and I did not argue it either. The truth is that I was frightened of having my heart stop with my promise to Wilda undone. I was more frightened of that than of anything Elinor might feel. That is the order I put them in, and I have to say it plainly.
On Tuesday, the third of March, 2020, Garrett drove me to Gantz & Pell in Ludlow. Mr. Pell read the paragraphs out loud and asked if they said what I wanted. The house on Plum Street to the four children in equal shares. To my wife, Elinor, the right to remain in the house for sixty days after my death. I signed it. It took four minutes. Garrett shook my hand in the parking lot and said it was the right thing and that Mom would be glad.
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I went home and Elinor had made a pot of chicken and dumplings. She said, “How was the heart doctor?” because I had told her the appointment was a follow-up. She sat down across from me and put her hand on mine. I ate every dumpling and I felt like a man swallowing nails.
I told myself I would change the will. I told myself I would walk into Gantz & Pell some Tuesday and say I had made a mistake, and then I would tell Elinor everything. I told myself that every month for six and a half years. I never did.