Ruth spoke only once. “I planted the garden. I sat with him through the nights. I was not ‘just his wife.’” She stood, thanked Priya, and left the office without looking back. The folder Sharon had brought stayed on the desk, unused.

That evening Ruth returned to the house on Larkspur Lane. The garden still needed watering. The back bedroom was quiet. She made a simple supper, sat at the table she and Ed had shared for twenty-six years, and stayed. The realtor never came. The thirty days never started. Ed had seen exactly what his children would do, and he had left his second wife the one thing that mattered most—the right to remain in her own home for as long as she lived.