But I did not tell him that yet.
In my years as a lawyer, I learned that silence is not empty. Silence is a room where careless people begin arranging the evidence against themselves. So I stood in the kitchen, staring at the lake my wife had loved, and let my son keep talking.
“Melissa’s parents are helping us look at places in Florida,” he said. “We’re going to use part of the money to clear the worst debts and put the rest toward a fresh start. There are good retirement communities down there, too. Warm weather would be good for you. You could find something nice.”
Something nice.
I thought of Eleanor’s hands in the garden. I thought of my granddaughter’s first steps on the dock. I thought of Kyle at nine years old running down the same dock with a towel around his shoulders, yelling that he was king of the lake. I thought of the summer Eleanor and I repaired the porch together after a storm tore half the railing off. I thought of every Thanksgiving we had hosted here, every Fourth of July, every quiet winter night when snow sealed us off from the world and we felt lucky to be forgotten.
My son had sold all of it in a phone call.
“Who is the buyer?” I asked.
“I told you. Lakefront Holdings. They’re out of Chicago.”
“Who handled the closing?”
“Why does that matter?”
“It matters because I asked.”
He made a frustrated sound, the same one he had made as a teenager when I wanted to see his report card before handing him car keys. “A title company in Minneapolis. Everything was standard. Clean deed, no mortgage, no liens. Dad, please don’t turn this into one of your lawyer things.”
One of my lawyer things.
