Kay sat with her hat on her lap and her bag at her feet in a firmly padded chair with her aunt beside her, on a hot and stuffy summer morning in 1892, in Mr. Bayers the lawyer’s office on the second floor of a tall building in downtown Philadelphia. The interior was well appointed, with wood paneling and a lot of nice things like books and a globe. It had a window which let in sunlight stained yellow by coal smoke, and electricity, which he was proud of, having turned on the light over his desk even though he really didn’t need it.
Kay, whose real name was Catherine, named after some Russian queen and would have rolled her eyes if you mentioned it, did not want to be in that chair. She fidgeted appropriately. Her father had died when she was very young, she could barely remember him, her four brothers had all been killed in the war, which left her an only child, and her mother had died of fever two years ago. With the death of her grandma and the need to read the will, she had no choice but to sit in that seat again. Her grandma and she had lived in a cottage on the edge of the Philadelphia. She had moved there after they had sold her family’s house. Kay, being young and unmarried, couldn’t live there alone.
Her grandma’s house had been small, but Kay didn’t have much left, and she and her grandma had fit in nicely. What she had could fit in the large trunk at the foot of her bed, the blankets and linens being moved to the quilt rack by the window. There were some things of her parents, what they sent back of her brothers, and letters and pictures of relatives she never knew. Her aunt knew some of them, and with her Grandma’s death she realized her mistake, writing what she could still find out from her aunt in the corners and edges.
Neighbors had come by, bringing food, tisking as they thought of her now alone, eyeing the house wondering how much she was going to sell it for. Kay in return had been polite, even gracious, ignoring the soot they tracked in. The June summer was hot, but the rain kept the air as clean as it ever got, and she could open windows without worrying about things getting too dirty. This meant that there were occasional breezes through the house and the sounds of people in the streets. She could hear the neighbors as they walked up her doorstep.
The lawyer didn’t like summer and was clearly over-dressed, but being as he was a lawyer and was charging for this, felt he needed to dress for the work. But he still had to mop his forehead with his handkerchief halfway through. He remembered most of what he was reading since he had helped to write it. The grandmother had not anticipated her relatively early death and had left the girl the house when she was clearly too young to own it. They would have to sell it. It was just a matter of getting this girl to realize the need. He did not relish what must come next.
