Real life is more complicated.
For the first two weeks after leaving the estate, I stayed in a hotel.
I could have moved immediately into one of three properties Terrence had purchased in my name.
Marcus had already arranged access to the accounts I needed.
I had money.
That wasn’t the problem.
I needed silence.
I ordered room service.
Watched meaningless television.
Slept at strange hours.
And allowed myself to be a widow before becoming anything else.
My mother lived in North Carolina.
She had never fully understood the Washington world, but she understood grief.
“You don’t have to figure out your whole life today,” she told me.
“You only have to survive today.”
Two weeks later, I finally moved into one of Terrence’s properties.
A quiet house in the county.
I had never seen it before.
He had purchased it two years earlier and renovated it secretly.
When I walked inside, I stopped in the hallway.
The books on the shelves were books I would have chosen.
The kitchen was arranged the way I liked kitchens arranged.
There was a reading chair by a window overlooking a garden.
Even the small details felt like me.
Terrence had designed a home for a future he hoped I would never need.
That was when I finally cried.
Not like a nurse.
Not quietly.
Not carefully.
I sat on the floor and grieved my husband like there was nobody left to impress.
When I was finished, I washed my face.
Then I called Marcus.
“Tell me everything.”
It took weeks to understand what Terrence had built.
