At Age 72, I Married My High School Sweetheart. Two Weeks Following My Eviction By His Children, With Only My Burial Dress In Hand, His Lawyer Arrived At My Trailer And Told Me, “Your Husband Made Sure You Got EXACTLY What You Deserved.”

“Get out,” she said, standing in the doorway of the bedroom I’d shared with her father for less than two months. “You’ve embarrassed our mother’s memory long enough.”

“Louise, I loved your father—”

“For eight weeks,” she said. “You loved him for eight weeks, and now you think that entitles you to a house my mother picked out the wallpaper for.”

Roy carried my suitcase out to the porch and set it down on the boards without meeting my eyes.

“Please,” I said, my voice smaller than I wanted it to be. “Can I at least take his photograph? The one from the mantel, the wedding one?”

“No,” Louise said. “Nothing in this house belongs to you.”