I cried because my grandfather had known me well enough to leave words for the exact moment I would need them.
For the first week, I moved like a machine. I unpacked. I answered Nora’s calls. I ignored calls from my mother, then Grant, then numbers I did not recognize. I made toast. I forgot to eat it. I slept with the lights on.
On the eighth day, my father came to the apartment building.
The doorman called upstairs. “Miss Kingsley, there is a Richard Kingsley here asking to see you.”
My stomach folded inward.
Nora had warned me this might happen. She had also instructed the building not to send visitors up without my approval.
“Tell him no,” I said.
A minute later, my phone buzzed.
Dad.
Then again.
Then a text.
Evelyn, this has gone far enough. Come downstairs.
I did not answer.
Another text came.
Your mother is ill over this.
