Then he walked out.
The door closed behind him.
Linda stayed.
She looked at me across the table, tears running down her face.
“Eleanor, I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” I said.
“But I need you to understand something.
I spent months thinking I was losing my mind.
Wondering if I had signed things I didn’t remember.
Wondering if Thomas had kept secrets from me.
You and Gerald let me doubt myself for thirty years.”
“I didn’t know about the forgery.
But I knew about the money.
I knew it was coming and I never asked where it came from.
That’s on me.”
“Yes,” I said.
“It is.”
She nodded.
She didn’t try to touch me or hug me.
She just stood there, crying, and then she walked out.
I went back to the retirement home the next Wednesday.
Albert was in his usual chair, the chess board already set up.
I sat down across from him.
“I read the letter,” I said.
“I listened to the recording.
I went to the bank.
I got a lawyer.”
“And?” Albert asked.
“And they’re paying it back.
All of it.
Gerald signed a confession.”
Albert nodded slowly.
“Thomas would have been proud of you.”
“He should have told me he was sick,” I said.
“I would have wanted to be there.”
“I told him that,” Albert said.
“He said he knew.
But he said he’d rather you remember him laughing than remember him fading.”
I moved a pawn.
Albert moved a knight.
“Albert, I listened to the recording.
The whole thing.
At the end, he said something I don’t understand.”
“What was that?”
“He said, ‘Tell Albert I said yes.
He’ll know what it means.’”
Albert’s hand stopped over the chess board.
He looked at me, and his eyes went bright with tears.
“He asked me something the last day he came,” Albert said.
“He asked if I would look after you.
Not as a patient.
Not as a volunteer.
As family.”
“And what did you say?”
