Light Up the Night by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2014-07-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

It had been a long couple of days.

The meetings had been endless, and if not for Trisha’s infinite aplomb and good manners, Bill would have probably made enemies of everyone in the town of Richmond, Vermont—and been a wreck besides. Instead, Trisha had taken the lead, applying breeding—that still didn’t fit with her stories and the charm that flowed from her naturally, in sharp contrast to her normal irascible self—with everyone they had to deal with.

Most of Constance’s belongings had gone to the thrift store that also hosted the local food bank, so they took her kitchen supplies too. One box of shared memories remained to be sealed and sent off to his storage locker at Little Creek Naval in Virginia. There was so little in it that it was almost impossible to believe. He’d moved them both here from Chicago in two suitcases and then he’d gone to the Navy, sleeping on the couch of her one-bedroom whenever he got leave.

But after a decade, it shouldn’t be so little. Some photos, a deck of cards, and the backgammon board they used to play on. A small framed picture of her and his father at their wedding and a month later standing in front of the Round Church, not yet knowing they had just conceived a child. Totally unaware of the hardships to come. A folded flag, which showed the worn spots of the desperate clutch of a woman who had lost her one true love twenty years before. A woman with few enough skills for being in the world on her own, saddled with a very angry eight-year-old boy.

He barely recalled Trisha finally removing the box from his lap, sealing it, and taking it away to the post office.

They paid off the coroner, canceled the apartment rental, and paid someone else to come in and clean the place after they were gone. The to-do list had seemed endless.

In the apartment, he’d uncovered her will. Simplest damn document, almost made him cry because it was just like her. Even with the lawyerese, it had only covered two pages. At its core it simply said, “To my son.” The attorney that Trisha scared up assured Bill that he’d take care of filing it, not that there was anything much left to matter.

Constance Bruce must have harbored every paycheck Bill had sent her as if it were gold. Not only was there a very tidy sum in their joint bank account, joint so that he could deposit his pay there, but she’d taken out a life insurance policy in his name years before. And, as far as he could tell, she’d spent almost nothing else. The VA had covered most of her medical. She’d been content to join the local church and work at the grocery. Her big evenings out were apparently going to the Grange on Family Night to help out.

He sat on the couch now, in an apartment empty of everything that might have been hers. It had been

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