The graveyard felt less like a place of mourning and more like a stage for unspoken calculation. As Grandma Cassandra was lowered into the earth, I stood apart from the rest of the family, my fingers wrapped around the worn leather leash of Berta. Berta, a golden retriever whose muzzle had faded to winter white, whimpered softly. For more than a decade she had been Grandma’s shadow—the only creature, Grandma often joked, who didn’t come with a price tag.
Grandma had built her textile empire from nothing and believed deeply in self-reliance. She would pay for an Ivy League education but not a car. She would fund a business idea but not rent. Her philosophy produced children and grandchildren who saw her less as a matriarch and more as a vault with a stubbornly complicated lock.
During the final six months of her life, as cancer steadily drained her strength, the house on Willow Lane grew quiet. My mother, Aunt Florence, and Uncle Jack had stopped visiting long ago, calling Grandma emotionally distant. I was the only one who moved in. Between long nursing shifts and caring for Grandma, exhaustion became routine, but it felt right. We never discussed money. We talked about my patients and the novels she loved. When my car needed a repair I couldn’t afford, she simply patted my hand and said, “You’re a nurse, Meredith. You know how to fix things. You’ll figure it out.”
Now the funeral was over, and the vultures had gathered in the living room. My mother paced, her eyes measuring the paintings. Uncle Jack checked his gold watch repeatedly. My cousins, Tom and Alice, leaned back as though already spending an inheritance that hadn’t been granted.
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