But for five months, I was too tired to fight. The grief felt like a heavy coat wet with rain. I spent the winter sitting in the kitchen, watching the snow pile up against the glass, barely moving.

The paperback of The Blue Lake remained on the side table, undisturbed. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. It felt like if I closed the book, I was officially declaring Arthur’s story over.

Then came that Tuesday morning.

Richard had called me twice before nine o’clock, his voice sharp with impatience. He said he had found a buyer who was willing to make a cash offer, but they wanted to see the property by Friday. He was coming over at noon with the listing contract.

“Just have your ID ready, Mom,” he said. “I’ll handle the rest.”

I hung up the phone. My hands were shaking so badly I dropped my coffee mug. It didn’t break, but the brown liquid spilled across the linoleum, pooling around my slippers.

I looked at the living room. The shelves were packed with Arthur’s books. Hundreds of them. History, biography, cheap pocket novels. I realized that if I didn’t do something, Richard’s junk men would toss them into a dumpster by afternoon.

I walked over to Arthur’s armchair. The room smelled faintly of his old pipe tobacco, though he hadn’t smoked in years. I reached out and finally picked up The Blue Lake.

The spine was dry, and as I lifted it, the old glue cracked. The pages gave way. The book didn’t open to the middle where his bookmark was. Instead, it fell completely open to the very last page, page 312.

The paper was yellowed and fragile. But what caught my eye was the margin.

Arthur always used a soft lead pencil. In his small, neat handwriting, the kind he used for mapping out county roads, there was a note. It filled the entire right margin of the page, curling around the final printed paragraph.

My eyes blurred as I read the first line.

“If you’re reading the ending first, then you finally held this old thing,” it began.

I sat down in his chair. My legs felt weak, like they wouldn’t hold me for another second. I held the paperback with both hands, my thumb pressing against the yellowed paper.

“Martha,” the note continued. “I know how Richard gets when he thinks he’s in charge. He has his mother’s drive but none of his father’s patience. I knew the second I was gone, he would try to put a sign in the yard. He thinks this house is just wood and plaster. He doesn’t know about the foundation.”

I stopped breathing. I had to read the line twice.