The butter knife was still wet with grape jelly when Harvey reached across my kitchen table and tapped the frame of the small oil painting.
It was an ordinary-looking painting.
Seven yellow egg yolks rested on a white ironstone plate, surrounded by soft shadows and muted colors.
My late husband, Arthur, had painted it during our first summer in Oakhaven.
For thirty years, it had hung above the kitchen table.
To me, it wasn’t just a painting.
It was a memory.
A piece of the man I had loved for most of my life.
Harvey didn’t see it that way.
“We need to get this piece appraised before the probate hearing on October twenty-fourth,” he said.
I stared at him.
“Appraised?”
“The court requires a full inventory of the personal property.”
I rubbed my thumb over my wedding ring.
“That painting has been on my wall for thirty years, Harvey.”
“It is a legal necessity,” he replied.
Then he stood.
Before I could say anything else, he lifted the frame from the wall.
The nail scraped against the plaster, leaving a tiny mark behind.
Harvey tucked the painting under his arm and walked toward the back door.
