Whether I’d persuaded her to transfer her property.
I answered every question honestly.
Then the solicitor asked whether Enid had ever seemed confused or unable to understand what was happening around her.
“Sometimes she’s tired,” I said. “But she knows who I am, where she is, and what she wants.”
“Can you prove that?”
Before I could answer, a voice came from the hallway.
“I can answer for myself, thank you very much.”
Enid stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on her walking frame.
I rushed toward her.
“You should be in bed.”
“And you should stop answering questions about me as though I’ve already died.”
Her nephew stared at her.
“Aunt Enid, we’re only trying to protect you.”
“No,” she replied. “You’re trying to protect what you think belongs to you.”
The room went silent.
She asked the solicitor to sit down.
Then she requested that I bring the small blue box from her bedside drawer.
I’d seen it many times but had never opened it. Enid had always kept it close, along with an old photograph of a young woman standing beside a railway station.
I brought it to her.
She opened the lid.
Inside lay several letters, a faded photograph, and a document bearing a name I had never seen before.
Enid lifted the photograph and handed it to me.
It showed a young woman with dark hair, standing beside a man in a military uniform.
On the back, in faded handwriting, were four words:
For the day you understand.
I looked at Enid.
“What is this?”
She took my hand.
“Something I should have told you before you ever moved me into this house.”
Her nephew interrupted.
“Aunt Enid, this is hardly the time—”
“Be quiet, Peter.”
He actually fell silent.
Enid turned back to me.
“Your mother wasn’t the only person who lost someone because they waited too long.”
I couldn’t breathe properly.
“What do you mean?”
She glanced at the solicitor, who appeared just as surprised as I was.
Then she opened one of the letters and began to read.
It was dated March 2019.
The month my mother died.
And halfway down the first page, I saw my mother’s full name.
My fingers went numb.
Enid looked up at me, tears gathering in her eyes.
“There’s a reason I never asked you to stop talking at nine o’clock,” she whispered. “And there’s a reason I knew exactly what you were feeling, even when you thought I couldn’t possibly understand.”
