She brought flowers from her own yard.
Ruby liked her immediately.
“So you’re the little girl who returned the wallet,” Beatrice said.
“Everybody keeps calling me that.”
“What would you prefer?”
Ruby thought.
“Ruby.”
Beatrice nodded approvingly.
“Ruby it is.”
They stood beside Eleanor’s grave.
Nathaniel placed no grand speech into the quiet afternoon.
He simply said, “I should have paid better attention.”
Claire looked at him.
“You can’t change that.”
“No.”
“But you paid attention when Ruby walked into your lobby.”
Nathaniel smiled toward her.
“She made it difficult not to.”
Ruby was crouched nearby examining a ladybug.
Beatrice watched her son.
“You’ve spent your whole life believing responsibility means controlling the outcome.”
Nathaniel sighed.
“Mother.”
“I’m eighty-two. I’ve earned the right to be inconvenient.”
Claire laughed.
Beatrice continued.
“Sometimes responsibility is staying long enough to hear what happened.”
Nathaniel looked at Eleanor’s name carved into the stone.
