I had put a pen beside my brother's cup. That was the mistake. He saw it before he sat down and knew I wanted something completed before the tea went cold.
Outside, the buyer waited in his car. He had agreed to give us half an hour. The house had been on the market for eleven months, and I had become tired of telling people that my mother died in hospital when they asked whether she died here.
"He has keys," Kellan said.
"For the survey."
"The survey was last month."
He set a carrier bag on the table. Our mother's slippers protruded from the top. He had taken them home after the funeral, then apparently decided they belonged with me.
The buyer's solicitor had prepared a consent confirming that we understood the reduced price. Kellan's half would be transferred on completion. Mine would arrive in two portions: one through the solicitor, the other privately, described as payment for furniture the buyer had no interest in keeping.
"You've seen the valuation," I said.
"I've also seen the furniture list."
I looked at his hands. He had a broken nail, a small white crescent still attached at one edge. I had watched him chew those nails through all the meetings after Mum died. It used to make me feel protective.
"You wanted me to deal with everything."
"I wanted you to sell the house."
"That is what I'm doing."
He moved the pen away from his cup.
The answering machine stood on the dresser behind him. Mum had refused the replacement I bought because the new one required looking at a screen. The old machine had proper buttons, a tape inside, a light you could see from the hall. After she died, I had unplugged the telephone lead but left the power connected. I listened sometimes while I cleaned.
Kellan turned and looked at it.
"I'll sign," he said. "I want that."
"You can have the furniture you want."
"The machine. With the tape."
There was one message left. Mum had called home from the hospital because she knew I was there sorting her washing. She had forgotten my mobile number. At the beginning she sounded irritated; then she remembered to say she was all right. I had been upstairs and hadn't heard the call.
Kellan knew about the message. I had once held my mobile beside the machine's speaker while it played, but he said he couldn't hear properly. Afterward he kept asking for a copy. There was always something else to arrange.
"It's addressed to me," I said.
"She's still my mother."
A car door shut outside. We both looked toward the window. The buyer was only stretching his legs, but he saw us and raised a hand. I lifted mine before I could help it.
Kellan turned back.
"That's the arrangement. You get your payment for the furniture. I get her voice."
I wanted to tell him how many hours I had spent in this kitchen, how little of the reduced price could possibly compensate for them. He had a life elsewhere. I had learned which cupboard stuck when it rained and how to stop the bathroom tap screaming. None of that appeared in the consent form.
"All right."
He uncapped the pen but waited.
I went to the dresser. The machine was dusty beneath its base. I lifted it and wound the loose telephone cord around it. Then I put it down again, one hand hiding the controls, and held down the button marked ERASE.
The little red light came on.
I watched the counter turn. I knew the message was short. I could hear it without playing it, the hospital sounds behind her, the scrape as she shifted the phone against her cheek.
"Merritt," Kellan said.
He could see the red light reflected in the dark kitchen window.
I let go and pulled the power lead out.
Neither of us spoke while I wound that cord around the other. When I turned, he was looking at the machine as though I had broken something large and noisy between us.
"The tape's been unreliable," I said.
He signed. He pressed hard enough to leave the same signature on the page underneath. Then he put the pen beside my cup and stood up.
"Take it," I said.
"You wanted it."
He left the slippers too.
The buyer came in before Kellan's car had reached the end of the street. He checked the signature, shook my hand and asked when the furniture could be cleared. I told him Wednesday. We were both relieved to have a date.
Three weeks later, the second payment reached my account. I bought nothing with it that day. I sat on the floor of my new kitchen with the answering machine between my feet, trying to speak the message into its little microphone.
I could remember the hospital noises better than the words. Mum had said something about coming in. I tried it both ways, asking me to come, telling me not to bother. Each sounded like her until I played it back.
