“I’m usually calm.”
He smiled.
“I know.”
I kept the envelope locked in the walnut document box in my office.
I hoped I would never need it.
Then Claire took my keys.
Standing in my kitchen after she left, I reached beneath my cardigan and touched the small pocket sewn inside my skirt.
There they were.
My spare keys.
Richard had believed in duplicates.
“Never own one copy of anything important,” he used to say.
I had a spare house key.
A spare gate remote.
A spare key to my office.
And a second tiny wooden owl my father had carved after I lost the first one for three weeks in 1987.
Claire had not trapped me.
She had only proved why I needed to stop pretending everything was fine.
I placed the spare keys on the kitchen table.
The metal made a clean little sound against the wood.
Then I picked up my phone.
My first call was to David.
“Today,” I said.
There was a pause.
“Something happened?”
“She took my keys so I couldn’t leave and told me to prepare dinner for twenty people.”
Another pause.
“Are you safe?”
“Completely.”
“Do you have another way out?”
“I have spare keys.”
“Good.”
“She’ll be back in less than two hours.”
“I can come by.”
“Bring the envelope.”
“I will.”
My second call was to Ruth.
“Are you busy?”
“I can become unbusy.”
“Come over.”
“What happened?”
“Claire is hosting a birthday party for twenty people at my house.”
Ruth hesitated.
“You hate large birthday parties.”
“I wasn’t invited to help host one.”
“Oh.”
“She left me instructions.”
“Eleanor.”
“She also took my keys.”
Ruth became quiet.
Then she said, “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“Bring Mabel if she’s free.”
“You want witnesses.”
“I want friends.”
Ruth understood the difference.
My third call was to the local locksmith Richard and I had used for years.
Not because I intended to lock anyone out illegally.
I wanted the locks inspected and rekeyed after Michael and Claire moved.
The locksmith agreed to come the following week.
I wrote the appointment on my calendar.
Then I did something Claire would never have expected.
I made coffee.
Not dinner.
Coffee.
Good coffee.
The beans Ruth had brought me from a little shop in Cincinnati.
I ground them slowly, filled the kettle, and opened the cabinet containing my blue-and-white china cups.
Claire disliked them.
She called them “grandma dishes.”
She was right.
They had belonged to my grandmother.
I placed six cups on a tray.
Then I walked through the house.
The living room looked exactly as Claire had left it.
A pair of her shoes near the couch.
Two shipping boxes beside the stairs.
A blanket crumpled on the sectional.
I did not touch any of it.
In the dining room, eighteen folding chairs were stacked against the wall.
Claire had apparently borrowed them without mentioning it.
A package of gold paper napkins sat on my table beside plastic centerpieces.
I moved nothing.
Back in the kitchen, I took photographs.
The greasy skillets.
The groceries.
The sink.
The instructions Claire had written on a yellow note.
Roast.
Salad.
Pudding.
Vacuum.
Bathrooms.
Twenty settings.
At the bottom she had written:
PLEASE DON’T MAKE THIS AWKWARD.
I photographed that too.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text from Claire.
Did you start the meat?
I typed:
No.
Three dots appeared immediately.
What do you mean no?
I replied:
I mean I have not started dinner.
The phone rang.
I let it ring twice before answering.
“Eleanor, what is going on?”
“I’m having coffee.”
“With who?”
“Friends.”
“You don’t have time for friends. My family is coming.”
“You should have planned accordingly.”
Silence.
Then her voice became low.