The cab driver pulls up to my parents’ house in the early evening at golden hour. The snow from this morning’s blizzard has settled, amplifying the twilight’s warmth, as though an artist brushed over everything with the fiery hue of a sunflower.
My colonial childhood home stands illuminated. Its elegance reminds me of my mother, Rosie.
She loathed its modest size. She’s dead.
I’ve always cherished this house, and it’s at least partially why I’m here. I want to know who will inherit it now that my parents are both gone from this world.
My younger brother, Gino? My favorite uncle, Donny? Both are living here. Whereas I haven’t been back to Fox Chapel, a Pittsburgh suburb with more country clubs than gas stations, in at least five years.
After I left my ex-husband, Wayne, Rosie told me I was no longer welcome home.
“That’s not what good wives do!” she hollered at Thanksgiving that year.
“He beat me!” I exclaimed while ducking under the table, barely missing her flying fork.
When I re-emerged, I saw Gino just sitting there, laughing, chomping so that I could see chunks of turkey in his mouth. I resisted picking the fork up off the floor and shoving it down his throat.