“You already have the money.”
“From you.”
“Yes.”
“That makes it worse.”
His expression hardened slightly.
“How?”
“Because now I owe you.”
“No.”
“You paid forty-nine thousand two hundred dollars.”
“And?”
“And normal people do not give strangers that kind of money.”
“I’m not normal.”
“That is not comforting.”
Nathan stood.
Bella continued.
“If I stop helping now, what does that make me?”
“A grieving daughter.”
“No.”
She stood too.
“That makes me the woman who took your money and disappeared when things became difficult.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“You think I paid you for loyalty?”
“I don’t know why you paid me.”
He stared.
There it was.
The thing between them.
Last night.
The transfer.
The intimacy created by desperation.
Bella’s voice lowered.
“You said everyone who came into that room wanted something.”
“Yes.”
“I did too.”
“You wanted your mother buried.”
“Yes.”
“That was not greed.”
“It was still a price.”
Nathan’s eyes hardened.
“Do not call it that.”
“Why?”
“Because I did not buy you.”
Silence.
Bella swallowed.
Nathan continued.
“You named the cost of bringing your mother home.”
His voice dropped.
“I paid it.”
“That is all.”
“You owe me nothing.”
Bella’s eyes filled.
She hated crying in front of him.
Again.
Nathan did not touch her.
He waited.
That somehow made the tears worse.
“My mother spent her whole life owing people.”
Bella wiped her face.
“Rent.”
“Doctors.”
“Employers.”
“Men.”
“She hated owing.”
Nathan listened.
“When she got sick, every bill felt like proof she had failed.”
Bella’s voice broke.
“And then she died still owing.”
Nathan looked toward the ledger.
“No.”
Bella frowned.
“She died.”
“Yes.”
“But she did not fail.”
Bella stared.
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“The people who turned illness into a measure of her worth failed.”
For a feared cattle boss, he occasionally said things that landed too gently.
Bella looked away.
Nathan spoke more quietly.
“You will bury your mother.”
“Yes.”
“And then decide whether you stay here.”
“Not because of money.”
“Not because of money.”
She nodded.
For the first time since the hospital, breathing became easier.
Not good.
Easier.
The funeral took place two days later.
Nathan did not attend.
Bella noticed.
Part of her expected him to.
Part of her was relieved he did not.
The service was small.
Hannah Carter had worked for decades yet left few close friends because work consumed the hours friendship required.
Four former housekeeping coworkers came.
A hospital nurse.
Debbie.
Mrs. Donnelly stood at the back without explaining how she knew.
Bella saw her and nearly cried again.
The coffin was simple.
Not cheap-looking.
Simple.
Exactly what Hannah would have wanted.
Bella placed one grocery coupon inside before the lid closed.
A ridiculous thing.
A private joke.
Her mother clipped coupons even when the savings were three cents.
Bella whispered:
“You can stop now.”
Then the coffin closed.
Afterward everyone left.
Bella remained beside the grave.
Snow threatened over the mountains.
She wore a black dress that fit poorly because buying mourning clothes for a woman her size on short notice proved nearly impossible.
She hated that this mattered.
Then she hated herself for hating it.
A voice came behind her.
“I thought you weren’t coming.”