Chapter 3 - Three Days Before the Funeral
Helen Porter would not discuss private banking information over the phone, but she agreed to meet Nora the following morning.
Before ending the call, she asked Nora a question.
“Do you possess a safe-deposit key belonging to your grandmother?”
“No.”
“Then please search carefully through her personal effects. Mrs. Bennett documented a backup instruction with us.”
Brenda stepped toward the phone.
“This conversation is over.”
Helen’s voice remained calm.
“Mrs. Collins, because you previously attempted to access the box, I must advise you that all records connected to it have been preserved.”
Brenda ended the call by pressing the screen in Nora’s hand.
“You are humiliating this family.”
“No,” Nora replied. “I am asking what you tried to open.”
Brenda turned toward the workers.
“The sale continues.”
Nora positioned herself in front of the folding table.
“No one takes anything else.”
A tall man holding a boxed lamp looked uncertain.
Brenda raised her voice.
“This is my mother’s home. I am her closest surviving child.”
Uncle Raymond finally moved away from the door.
“You are not the legal owner, Brenda.”
Everyone looked at him.
Brenda narrowed her eyes.
“You have been silent all morning. Continue being silent.”
Raymond’s face reddened.
“I stayed quiet because I did not want a fight at Shirley’s funeral. But this is wrong.”
He instructed the workers to set down what they were carrying.
Several buyers asked for their money back. Others left without waiting.
Brenda grabbed Nora’s coat sleeve.
“You think a bank box makes you important? Mother probably stored old photographs in it.”
“Then why did you try to open it before she was buried?”
Brenda released her.
“I was handling funeral expenses.”
“With a forged document?”
The room became silent again.
Brenda’s eyes sharpened.
“You do not know what you are talking about.”
“Then explain it at the bank tomorrow.”
Brenda marched upstairs.
Moments later, Nora heard drawers opening and closing.
She followed.
Brenda was searching Shirley’s bedroom.
“What are you looking for?”
“Insurance papers.”
“You said there were no papers.”
Brenda pulled open the nightstand drawer.
“Stop twisting my words.”
Nora watched her empty a jewelry box onto the bed.
There was no grief in Brenda’s movements. Only urgency.
Nora took out her phone and began recording.
Brenda noticed.
“You are not recording me in my own mother’s house.”
“It is not your house.”
Brenda rushed forward, but Raymond appeared in the doorway.
“That is enough,” he said.
Brenda looked from Raymond to Nora.
“You will both regret this.”
She collected her handbag and left through the rear door.
Nora returned downstairs and locked the house.
The sale stickers remained everywhere, bright reminders of how quickly a life could be divided into prices.
Raymond knelt beside the broken bowl.
“Shirley painted that the year Nora’s mother was born,” he said quietly.
Together, they collected every fragment.
Inside the hollow base of one thick piece, Nora heard a faint metallic sound.
May you like
She turned it over.
A small brass key slid into her palm.
