When I became a widow, I didn’t tell my son about what my husband had quietly put in place for me—or about the second home in Spain. I’m glad I kept quiet… A week later, my son texted me: “Start packing. This house belongs to someone else now.” I smiled… because I’d already packed—and what I was taking with me… wasn’t in any of those boxes.
The funeral flowers had barely wilted when the phone calls began. I was standing in my kitchen on a gray Tuesday morning, three weeks after we buried my husband, Russell, watching steam coil off a cup of coffee I couldn’t bring myself to drink. The ceramic mug—white with a faded red heart and the…
