My husband had spent years warning me never to set foot on that farm. So after he passed away and the lawyer handed me the key, saying that from now on the place belonged to me, I was ready to sell it right away and put everything behind me. But before making my final decision, I still wanted to see it once for myself. When the door opened, I finally understood why, all those years, he had never wanted me to set foot there.

He leaned back slightly. “Mrs. Mitchell, there is another complicating factor. The property has increased significantly in value over the last eighteen months due to oil discoveries in the surrounding region. Your husband declined several purchase offers.”

My first thought was not about money. It was simpler and stranger than that.

Joshua had gone back.

Somehow, sometime, while we were making dinner and paying electric bills and attending district curriculum meetings and pretending middle age was as stable as it looked from the outside, my husband had gone back to the one place he had forbidden even me to see.

He had bought it. Restored it, apparently. Kept it secret. Hidden it so completely that even now, dead and folded into paperwork, he was still capable of changing the shape of my world with one more revelation.

“How?” I asked quietly. “How did he afford it?”

“I cannot speak in detail about his private finances beyond what is contained in the estate documents,” Mr. Winters said, which was the lawyer’s way of saying he absolutely could, but would not. “I can tell you he arranged matters lawfully and meticulously. There is no issue there.”

“Why keep it from me?”