I could hear the television, a morning news program, the volume higher than necessary. The kind of deliberate noise that fills a room when the people in it don’t want to talk to each other or be overheard. I walked to my bedroom, closed the door behind me, and sat down at my small writing desk.
I am not a woman who panics. I have outlived a husband, a brother, a miscarriage, three layoffs during Roland’s working years, a cancer scare in 2015 that turned out to be nothing, and a flood in the basement in 2018 that destroyed 30 years of holiday photographs. Panic is a luxury for people who have not yet learned that it changes nothing.
What changes things is clear thinking followed by deliberate action. So, I thought clearly. What did I know for certain? I knew that the winning lottery ticket had been purchased at Garfield’s pharmacy on the 6th of March on a Thursday in the afternoon during my regular weekly visit. I knew that it was a multi-draw ticket using my specific numbers.
Roland’s birthday in the first sequence, my birthday in the second, our wedding year in the third. I knew that no one else in my household played those numbers because no one else in my household had any reason to. What did I not know? Whether my name was on the back of the ticket? Whether Derek or Cynthia had added their own name before or after mine? Whether they had in fact already contacted the Ohio Lottery Commission.
What could I find out? Everything. if I moved quickly and carefully. I opened my desk drawer and found the small leather address book I had kept for 40 years, its spine soft from handling. I found the number for James Whitmore, an attorney who had handled Roland’s estate and who had over the years become something closer to a trusted adviser than a professional contact.
