Chapter 1 - The Woman Behind the Blue Shutters
For six years, I had paid Ada Holloway’s water bill.
Twenty-nine dollars a month.
Sometimes twenty-seven.
Sometimes thirty-two.
Never enough to matter to me.
But apparently, enough to matter to Ada.
I just didn’t know it.
My name is Helen Carter, and until the morning Ada died, I believed our relationship was nothing more than two neighbors sharing a fence, a few cups of coffee, and the occasional argument about whose roses were growing over whose side of the property line.
Ada was eighty-four.
She lived alone in the little blue-shuttered house next door.
Her husband had died fourteen years earlier.
Her only son, Philip, lived three states away.
At least, that was what I knew.
I met Ada in the summer of 2018.
She was standing on a ladder, trying to clean her gutters during a thunderstorm.
I remember looking out my kitchen window and thinking, This woman is going to kill herself.
I ran outside.
“Mrs. Holloway!”
She looked down.
“What?”
“Get off that ladder!”
She frowned.
“Why?”
“Because you're eighty-two years old!”
“I've been eighty-two for three months,” she snapped. “I haven't forgotten how ladders work.”
That was Ada.
Stubborn.
Sharp-tongued.
Proud.
And secretly lonely.
I held the ladder while she finished the job.
Afterward, she invited me inside for coffee.
That coffee became a weekly tradition.
Every Wednesday afternoon, we'd sit at her kitchen table.
She would complain about television programs.
I'd complain about my boss.
She'd tell me stories about her husband.
I'd tell her about my grown children.
Sometimes we'd play cards.
Ada cheated constantly.
And when I caught her, she'd simply smile.
“You need to pay better attention.”
I loved her for that.
Then, in January 2019, I noticed an orange notice taped to her front door.
FINAL WATER SHUTOFF WARNING.
I knocked.
Ada didn't answer.
I knocked again.
Finally, I heard her voice.
“Who is it?”
“Helen.”
The door opened slightly.
Ada stood behind it wearing an old cardigan.
“What do you want?”
I pointed toward the notice.
She immediately covered it with her hand.
“Nothing.”
“Ada.”
“It's handled.”
“It doesn't look handled.”
Her chin lifted.
“I said it's handled.”
I knew that expression.
It meant the conversation was over.
So I didn't argue.
I went home.
Then I called the water department.
I paid the outstanding balance.
I gave them my card number and asked them not to disclose my name.
The next Wednesday, Ada opened the door wearing her usual annoyed expression.
“You're late.”
“Traffic.”
“You walked thirty feet.”
“Terrible traffic.”
She rolled her eyes.
Neither of us mentioned the water bill.
After that, I quietly paid it every month.
Twenty-nine dollars.
Then twenty-eight.
Then thirty-one.
Six years passed.
I never told Ada.
Or at least, I thought I hadn't.
Then she died.
Quietly.
In her sleep.
I found out when a police officer knocked on my door at seven in the morning.
“Are you Helen Carter?”
“Yes.”
“I'm sorry.”
My stomach dropped.
“Ada?”
He nodded.
“She passed sometime during the night.”
I stood there unable to speak.
For several seconds, all I could think about was the coffee cup sitting on Ada's kitchen table.
The one we'd used the previous Wednesday.
The last time I'd seen her alive.
At her funeral, there were fewer than thirty people.
Philip arrived late.
He stood near the back.
He looked uncomfortable.
He didn't cry.
After the service, he shook hands with people and thanked them politely.
When he reached me, he barely looked at my face.
“You're Helen?”
“Yes.”
“Mom talked about you.”
My heart warmed.
“She did?”
He nodded.
“Mostly about how you were always interfering.”
I smiled awkwardly.
“That sounds like Ada.”
He walked away.
I thought that was the end of it.
It wasn't.
The next morning, someone knocked on my door.
When I opened it, Philip stood there.
Beside him was a tall man in a gray suit carrying a leather briefcase.
“Ms. Carter,” the stranger said.
“Yes?”
“My name is Nathan Price. I'm an attorney representing the Holloway estate.”
I looked at Philip.
“Is something wrong?”
Philip's expression was cold.
“We have questions about your relationship with my mother.”
I stared at him.
Nathan opened his briefcase.
And placed a six-year stack of water bills on my porch table.
My stomach tightened.
Philip pointed at my name.
“You paid these.”
I said nothing.
“You paid my mother's bills without telling her.”
“I was trying to help.”
“Why?”
“Because she needed help.”
He laughed bitterly.
“That's not an answer.”
Nathan interrupted.
“Mrs. Holloway recently changed her will.”
My heart stopped.
“I didn't know.”
Philip stepped closer.
“Of course you didn't.”
He looked toward Ada's house.
Then back at me.
“My mother left something to you.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“That,” he said coldly, “is exactly what we're here to find out.”
Nathan reached into his briefcase.
“And depending on what we discover, the entire will may be challenged.”
I swallowed.
“Why?”
Nathan's expression became serious.
“Because your financial involvement with Ada may have influenced her decisions.”
Philip folded his arms.
“You manipulated an elderly woman.”
The accusation hit me harder than I expected.
For six years, I had quietly made sure Ada had running water.
And now her son was standing on my porch calling it manipulation.
I looked toward the blue shutters next door.
Then I remembered something Ada had told me three months earlier.
Helen, if Philip ever comes asking questions, don't explain yourself.
At the time, I'd laughed.
Now I wasn't laughing.
Because Ada had known this day was coming.
May you like
And she had prepared for it.
I just didn't know how much she had prepared.
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