And beneath it were four words in Richard’s handwriting.
She deserved a home.
I looked at the lawyer.
“Why did he have this?”
The lawyer took a slow breath.
“That’s the question I think you need to answer.”
And suddenly, I remembered something Richard had said to me during our first week together.
Something I hadn’t understood at the time.
He had looked at me across his study and asked,
“Nora, where did you grow up?”
I had told him.
The name of the shelter.
The city.
The neighborhood.
Richard had gone completely still.
Then he had smiled.
“I see,” he said.
I had thought nothing of it.
I should have.
Because Richard had known me long before I ever knew him.
And the story of how we met really began decades earlier.
My entire childhood was a collection of temporary places.
I grew up in foster care.
There was never one bedroom that truly belonged to me.
Never one family photograph where I knew I would still be there the following year.
Sometimes I stayed with families who were kind.
Sometimes they weren’t.
Sometimes I was told I was staying for a few weeks.
Sometimes nobody bothered explaining why I had to leave.
I learned early not to become attached to things.
A favorite blanket could disappear.
A stuffed animal could be left behind.
A family could say they loved you and then decide they couldn’t keep you.
At one shelter, when I was five, another child pointed at me and laughed because I was carrying everything I owned in a plastic grocery bag.
One of the adults looked at me and said,
“You’re like a stray kitten.”
Everyone laughed.
I didn’t.
I remembered those words for years.
Stray.
As if I had chosen to be homeless.
As if I had chosen not to belong anywhere.
Then I met Tom.
He was a few years older than me and had the kind of smile that made people feel safe.
Even when he was having a terrible day, he found something to laugh about.
We became friends first.
Then we became inseparable.
When we eventually left the foster system, we stayed in contact.
Neither of us had much.
But we had each other.
Our first date was at a cheap diner where Tom spent nearly twenty minutes pretending to understand a menu he couldn’t afford.
