The weeks that followed felt like a quiet war.
Louis moved through our house with calm purpose. He refilled Mom’s water, adjusted her pillows, read old gardening magazines aloud, and seemed to know exactly what she needed. Mom had handled everything herself before I even knew he existed—the paperwork, the payment, even the spare key.
By the time I thought to demand references, the arrangement was already done.
I watched him from doorways and hallways, waiting for something wrong.
A greedy glance.
A suspicious phone call.
A mistake.
But nothing came.
“You don’t have to watch me so closely, Miss Margaret,” he said one afternoon. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s what worries me.”
He only nodded, as if my dislike was weather he had prepared for.
Mom, meanwhile, began to bloom.
She laughed at his stories. She ate more. Her cheeks filled out a little.
But every time I entered the room, their conversations stopped.
One evening, I asked, “What were you talking about?”
“Old songs,” Mom said sweetly.
Louis slipped something into his vest pocket.
A small leather notebook.
I had seen him writing in it before, always when he thought I wasn’t looking.
That night, I called Brenda.
“Please,” I whispered. “Tell me what you know.”
There was a long silence.
“I don’t know who he is, Margaret. That’s what hurts. She wouldn’t tell me. After twelve years, she just told me she had chosen him and that I should mind my business.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all I have.”
Then she hung up.
I did something I’m not proud of.
That night, while Louis slept in the guest room, I searched his jacket where it hung over a chair.
I found the notebook.
And beneath it, a photograph.
