2. The Silence That Came After The Funeral
While her father was alive, Nora played her part beautifully. Once he was gone, she stopped bothering. My calls started going to voicemail, then stopped connecting at all. Texts sat unread. The birthday message I spent an hour drafting never got so much as a thumbs up.
I told myself grief does strange things to people and gave her room. What I did not expect was the phone call from the bank clerk who assumed I already knew. Somehow Nora had persuaded them to move every cent of her father’s inheritance into an account with only her name on it. I stood in my hallway holding the phone long after the woman had finished speaking.