William Edwards Leaves His Screaming Son on a Friday Afternoon in Hartford
I walked out into the chilly October air of the parking lot, where a young woman in a gray coat was waiting next to a black sedan.
“Mr. Edwards?” she asked, her voice quiet as she stepped forward. “I am Karen’s assistant, Sarah.”
I handed her the eight-thousand-dollar cashier’s check.
She slid it into a manila envelope, her fingers moving quickly in the cool afternoon breeze.
“We will file the petition at nine tomorrow morning,” she said, turning back toward her car.
I walked back to David’s Buick and sat in the driver’s seat, the heavy keys resting on my knee.
I opened my small blue bank book to the last page, where the printed numbers showed the remaining balance of my retirement account.
The line under the withdrawal read exactly zero dollars and zero cents.
By Sunday afternoon, the autumn wind had stripped the maple trees along West Boulevard, leaving the branches dry and clicking in the cold.
I parked the sedan at the curb outside Sue Melton’s peeling colonial house at exactly five o’clock.
