I cried over them.
Rebecca sat beside me.
“She talked about you.”
“So Thomas said.”
“Not constantly.”
“Good.”
Rebecca laughed.
“But whenever someone at the hospital stayed late to help a family, Mom would say, ‘Margaret taught me that nobody should feel alone in a corridor.’”
I looked down.
“I don’t remember teaching her anything.”
“She probably didn’t know she was learning it.”
Ellie was on the floor arranging photographs chronologically, which she had learned at school.
Rebecca watched her.
“She’s wonderful.”
“Yes.”
“She reminds me of Allison.”
I looked at her.
“Your daughter?”
She nodded.
“They both notice things adults overlook.”
I thought about the ring tucked behind candy.
“Thomas told me.”
“About Allison?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca touched the ring.
“I was selling this.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know if I can now.”
“That’s your decision.”
She smiled sadly.
“I thought you’d say that.”
“What are you going to do about the mortgage?”
“I’ll sell the house.”
I frowned.
“You’re raising your grandson there?”
“Yes.”
“Does he want to move?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Rebecca looked ashamed.
“But wanting and affording aren’t the same thing.”
No.
I knew that intimately.
I looked at the trust paperwork on the side table.
An idea arrived.
Then I rejected it immediately.
Not my money.
Not for that purpose.
Still, something bothered me.
“Does the caregiver fund help other families?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Small emergency grants.”
“Only small?”
“The investment earnings support them. Your restricted account remained untouched because of the original terms.”
“What if I accept the account?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Then it becomes available for the listed purposes.”
“Can I ask the trustees to amend part of it?”
“Possibly.”
“To support grandparents raising children after a parent dies?”
Rebecca went still.
“That would include you.”
“Yes.”
“And me.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled.
“That’s why you’re asking?”
“No.”
I looked toward Ellie.
“I’m asking because there are probably thousands of us.”
Grandparents.
Aunts.
Uncles.
Older siblings.
People becoming parents again when grief leaves a child behind.
Rebecca covered her mouth.
I continued.
“What if some of the investment income funded those families?”
She stared at me.
“That sounds like Rose.”
I smiled through tears.
“Then perhaps it’s worth asking.”
That became the first decision.
Not the roof.
Not prescriptions.
Not college.
Purpose.
Thomas helped arrange a meeting with the trustees.
