“I was standing at the window,” Eleanor said, answering the question Megan had not asked. “I was not meant to hear. I heard.”
“Being fair to other people had started to require being unfair to myself. And I am too old for that.”
Eleanor Bishop
“Where is it going, then?” Megan asked. “If Robert is out, where does it go?”
Eleanor looked around the room. At the scuffed floor near the front door where generations of sandy feet had softened the finish. At the yellow quilt visible through the guest-room doorway, the pieces of it older than her marriage to Henry. At the crooked lamp in the hallway, casting its oval of light on the floor.
“To a foundation,” she said. “A local one. They provide long-term housing for women who have very little. Widows, primarily. Caregivers who spent their lives caring for others and found, when the caregiving was finished, that there was not much left for them. Women who gave and gave and were not given back in equal measure.”
Megan stared at her.
“You’re giving it away.”
“I am giving it a purpose that reflects what it already is,” Eleanor said. “This house was built by giving. It was bought by giving. It should keep giving when I’m gone.”