Chapter 25 - MARGARET’S DEATH
Margaret died at eighty-two after a stroke.
She had lived six years after supervised release.
Quietly.
No company role.
No reconciliation tour.
She maintained contact with one cousin and several old friends.
Sent Leo one letter per year through counsel until he asked her to stop.
She stopped.
That mattered.
Her estate was not enormous after restitution and legal costs.
Condo.
Investments.
Jewelry.
Personal effects.
She left Elena her wedding ring.
Elena stared at the bequest.
“Why?”
No letter explained.
Elena declined it.
The executor sold it.
Proceeds went through the estate according to ordinary rules.
No symbolic charity required.
Margaret left Leo a set of Jonathan’s old fountain pens.
He kept one.
“Why?”
“It writes well.”
Objects can become ordinary.
At the funeral, Elena chose not to attend.
I did.
Leo did.
Neither decision meant more virtue.
I stood near my mother’s coffin and felt grief.
That confused me.
Maya had warned me.
“Someone can be abusive and still be your mother.”
I remembered:
Her teaching me to drive.
Packing lunches.
Sitting beside my hospital bed when I broke my arm at eleven.
Then:
Elena on the rug.
Leo screaming.
The folder.
Both histories were true.
I did not need to flatten Margaret into monster or mother.
She had been a person.
She made choices.
Some loving.
Some unforgivable.
Law handled acts.
Memory handled the rest.
At the graveside, Leo stood beside me.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
We stayed until everyone left.
May you like
Then went for burgers.
Grief is sometimes that ordinary.
