He kept saying that. Like those four words explained everything.
Six months earlier, after Ellen died of pancreatic cancer, Travis started coming around more. At first I was grateful for it. Grief will make a man stupid with loneliness. He brought groceries. Helped with the snowblower. Sat at the table and talked to me about “protecting assets” and “estate planning” and how probate could tear a family apart if we weren’t smart.
I had spent forty years welding in shipyards, mills, and pipeline jobs. I knew steel. I knew blueprints. I knew the smell of slag and wet iron and the exact sound a beam made when it was under too much load.
I did not know paperwork.
That was Ellen’s territory.
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