“Nora.”
“I was cleaning the east hallway that night,” she said.
“I heard voices before I heard her fall.”
“Whose voices.”
“Eleanor’s and Vanessa’s.”
I sat down across from her.
“Keep going,” I said quietly.
“They were arguing,” Nora said. “About the trust.”
“About money.”
“Eleanor told her she was cutting her out.”
“Cutting who out of what?”
“Vanessa,” Nora said. “Out of the family trust.”
I stared at her.
“Vanessa wasn’t in the trust,” I said. “She wasn’t even in our lives yet.”
Nora shook her head.
“She was,” Nora said. “Not the way you think.”
“Eleanor and Vanessa were cousins.”
The room went quiet.
“What?” I said.
“Distant cousins,” Nora said. “Through Eleanor’s mother’s side.”
“They grew up close. Then they weren’t.”
“Vanessa needed money. Eleanor had stopped giving it to her.”
I felt the floor tilt under me.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me this,” I said.
“Because Vanessa asked me not to,” Nora said. “She said it would only hurt you more.”
“She said grief was hard enough without secrets.”
“So I stayed quiet.”
“For two years?”
“I was scared,” Nora said. “I still am.”
I put my head in my hands.
“What else,” I said. “What else do you know.”
Nora reached into her apron pocket.
She pulled out an old phone.
A cracked screen, a cheap case.
“This was Eleanor’s second phone,” she said. “The one she used for the girls’ school apps.”
“I found it in the laundry room three days after the funeral.”
“I never told anyone I had it.”
“Why.”
“Because of what’s on it.”
She handed it to me.
My fingers wouldn’t work right.
I finally got the screen open.
There was a text thread with Vanessa’s name.
Dated the night Eleanor d**d.
Eleanor: “I’m calling the lawyer tomorrow.”
Eleanor: “You’re out of the trust. For good.”
Vanessa: “You don’t mean that.”
Eleanor: “I do. Mom would be ashamed of you.”
Vanessa: “Don’t do this to me.”
Eleanor: “It’s already done.”
The thread stopped there.
Ten minutes later, Eleanor was on the stairs.
Ten minutes after that, she was gone.
I put the phone down on the bed.
