After my husband’s funeral, I returned home with my black dress still clinging to my skin. I opened the door… and found my mother-in-law and eight family members packing suitcases as if it were a hotel.

Once, while we were walking under balconies draped with ferns in St. Augustine, he told me, “When you spend enough years tracing greed, you either become greedy or you become private.”

He chose private.

We lived well, but never loudly. We rented at first, then bought the condo through a holding company that later became part of a trust structure I barely paid attention to because I trusted him and because he hated letting money dominate a room.

We traveled. Ate well. Collected books instead of status symbols. He paid debts early. Donated quietly. Never once gave his mother a number.

That last part infuriated her.

Marjorie hated any mystery she couldn’t control.

At family dinners, she would ask if Bradley was still doing that small consulting job. She’d laugh too loudly and say she hoped he wasn’t trusting me with all the passwords because women could be unpredictable around money.