I called Stephanie the following morning.
I had slept badly.
Every time I closed my eyes, I remembered something small about Walt. The way he cleared his throat before reading aloud. The way he left his shoes beside the back door instead of putting them in the closet.
I had begun waking up and reaching across the bed before remembering he was gone.
Grief had turned ordinary habits into little injuries.
Stephanie answered quickly.
"Mom, how are you doing today?"
She lived about forty minutes away with her husband and children.
Her days were filled with school activities, tennis lessons, birthday parties, and errands that seemed to multiply whenever she crossed something off her list.
She had always been emotional.
As a child, she cried when another girl wouldn't share a toy. She cried when she saw injured animals and once sobbed for an entire afternoon because she thought I was disappointed in her after she broke a drinking glass.
I had loved that softness in her.
I thought it meant she would always notice when somebody was hurting.
I told her I wasn't doing well.
Then I gave her the same explanation I had given Michael.
The medical expenses had taken our savings.
The house was about to be lost.
I had nowhere to go.
I kept the story simple because I wanted each child to hear the same thing.
Stephanie made a small sound.
Then she started crying.
"Oh, Mom. I can't believe this is happening to you."
Her voice shook.
I could hear her breathing through her nose, and I pictured her sitting somewhere in her house with a tissue in her hand.
My first instinct was to comfort her.
That was what I had done for most of her life.
Even when I was the person in trouble, I found myself trying to make everybody else feel better.
"You don't have to worry about me crying," I told her.
"I'm just so upset."
I waited.
I wanted her to offer me a room.
I wanted her to say that I could stay with her family until I found my feet.
I would have accepted a small bedroom or a mattress in the basement.
I would have cooked, cleaned, and helped with the children.
I didn't need luxury.
I needed to know I wasn't alone.
Instead, she asked me something I hadn't expected.
"How much money do you have left, exactly?"
I looked at the printed housing information on the table.
"Nothing, sweetheart."
There was a silence.
Then her crying stopped.
It happened so quickly that I almost thought the connection had dropped.
I waited for her to speak.
"Oh."
That was all she said at first.
One word, delivered in a different voice from the one I had heard moments earlier.
I felt the change more than I understood it.
Stephanie didn't ask how much time I had before the bank took the house.
She didn't ask whether I had somewhere to sleep.
She didn't ask whether I had eaten breakfast.
She began telling me about places that offered assistance to older people.
"Have you contacted any community shelters?"
I looked toward the window.
"No. I haven't."
"There are some places that help people in your situation. They're not all bad, Mom."
I held the telephone against my ear.
She went on to explain that some facilities had programs for seniors and that I should see whether I qualified.
"Maybe you could call around and find out what they offer."
"Maybe I could."
"I don't want you thinking there's nowhere to go."
I almost laughed at that.
My daughter was explaining that I had options while making no offer to let me into her home.
But I didn't laugh.
I was still hoping she would change her mind.
I was still her mother.
Then I heard children in the background.
Stephanie lowered her voice.
"Listen, I have to pick the kids up. They're running late for tennis, and I haven't even packed their things."
"All right."
"I'll call you again soon."
She ended the call.
I sat there without moving.
The kitchen clock ticked above the doorway.
Walt had bought it from a hardware store years ago because the previous one had stopped working. He had refused to pay more than twenty dollars for a replacement.
It had never kept perfect time.
Whenever it fell behind, he tapped the side with two fingers and announced that he had fixed it.
I looked at it now and remembered his voice.
Money shows you who people are.
For the first time, I was angry with him.
He had wanted us to keep our wealth quiet.
He had wanted us to find out whether our children would treat us differently if they believed we had nothing.
But he wasn't here to hear Stephanie recommend a shelter.
He wasn't here to watch me struggle with what I had learned.
He had left me to carry the answer by myself.
I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes.
Then I felt ashamed of my anger.
Stephanie had a family. She had bills and responsibilities, just as Michael did.
I had not asked her outright whether I could stay.
I had presented her with a frightening situation and waited for her to offer a solution.
Maybe she thought I wanted advice.
Maybe she thought I would feel embarrassed if she offered help I couldn't repay.
I tried to give her every possible excuse.
But there was one thing I couldn't explain away.
She had not asked what I needed.
She had asked how much money remained.
And when I told her there was none, the conversation changed.
I walked into the living room and picked up an old photograph from the shelf.
Stephanie was about eight in the picture.
She stood beside Walt in the garden, a ribbon in her hair and a gap where her front teeth should have been.
She was laughing at something outside the frame.
I remembered that afternoon.
She had broken a glass in the kitchen and cried because she thought we would be angry.
Walt had swept up the pieces while she stood nearby, looking miserable.
"It's only a glass," he had told her.
Then he took her to buy ice cream.
That was the kind of father he had been.
He didn't make his children feel that one mistake defined them.
I wondered when Stephanie had begun looking at every problem through the question of what it might cost her.
Then I wondered whether we had helped teach her that.
Parents are quick to blame the world when their children disappoint them.
We blame the people they marry, the jobs they take, and the friends they keep.
It is harder to ask what our children learned by watching us.
I returned the photograph to the shelf.
I wasn't ready to call Stephanie again.
There was still Danny.
My youngest.
He had never been the child teachers praised for academic achievement.
He struggled with reading, had trouble sitting still, and barely finished high school.
Michael sometimes called him lazy.
Stephanie worried aloud that he would never get ahead if he didn't become more organized.
I had worried, too.
I had wondered whether Danny would ever find a steady career or earn enough to support a family.
Walt never seemed troubled by those questions.
He believed Danny had something that couldn't be measured on a school report.
"He doesn't quit when things get hard," Walt once told me.
"That counts for something."
Danny became a mechanic.
He worked long shifts at an auto repair shop and often stayed late when a customer needed a car the next morning.
He and his wife, Kayla, lived in a two-bedroom apartment above a laundromat.
Their two boys shared a room.
The living room was crowded with a couch, a television, and a small table that had seen better days.
The washing machines downstairs made the floor tremble when the larger dryers started.
I had visited them enough to know that there was no spare room waiting for anyone.
If Danny said yes, he would have to give up something.
He would have to rearrange the lives of four people to make space for me.
I looked at the telephone.
I was frightened of the answer now.
Not because I thought Danny would refuse.
Because I had begun to understand what it would mean if he didn't.
I picked up the receiver and dialed his number.
He answered while I was still listening to the ringing.
"Hey, Mom. Everything okay?"
I closed my eyes.
This was the last call.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: My Youngest Son Had Almost Nothing to Spare, Yet His First Answer Made Me Put Down the Telephone and Cry
The Three Phone Calls I Made After Walt Died Began With a Lie I Thought My Children Would Never Make Me Regret
Part 2 of 28
