Slow And Steady

Husband, a wife, and a insurance policy

Slow and Steady

Helen sat down in her rocking chair and exhaled like someone had just let the air out of her soul. The kind of sigh that sounded like grief and boredom had teamed up and decided to move in permanently. She leaned back slowly — her knees weren’t what they used to be — and rubbed her temples with fingers still smelling faintly of funeral lilies and dollar-store hand sanitizer.

It had been a long day.

Roger had died last week. Heart attack. Sudden, though not entirely shocking. The man’s idea of a vegetable was ketchup, and he’d once claimed jogging was “un-Christian.” But even after years of eye rolls, Helen hadn’t really expected him to go so soon. Or so loudly. He’d collapsed mid-sentence, halfway through telling her she was “folding the towels wrong again.”

His final words?

“Slow and steady, Helen, or you’re gonna screw it up.”

She’d told the paramedics they should put that on his tombstone. They hadn’t laughed.

The funeral had been today — three full hours of it. Roger, in all his controlling glory, had left detailed instructions for the entire event. It read like a commandment from Mount Petty.

“Black suits only — no navy.
Hymn #237, no substitutes.
Helen is to read Psalm 23, but slowly so she doesn’t mess it up.”

Helen had practiced it for days. Not because she was afraid of messing up — she had a decent grasp of the English language, thank you — but because, for all his faults, Roger was still the man she’d spent forty-two years with.

And, if she was being honest, it felt good to get it exactly right. Just this once.

Still, by the end of the third eulogy and second plate of funeral meatballs, she was ready to drop. She was fifty-seven years old, recently widowed, and emotionally exhausted. She didn’t want to hear one more person say “he’s in a better place.” Frankly, she wasn’t sure Heaven was ready for Roger and all his opinions.

Just as she closed her eyes and prepared to sink into an afternoon of blessed nothingness, her phone buzzed.

Mr. Richards. Their lawyer.

She answered with a weary “Hello?”

“Hi, Helen, it’s Mr. Richards. I’m so sorry for your loss. I was actually in the neighborhood — mind if I stop by? There’s something important I need to discuss regarding Roger’s life insurance policy.”

Helen’s stomach sank.

“Is there… a problem?” she asked, eyes narrowing.

“No, no, not a problem exactly,” Mr. Richards replied, which is what people always said right before dropping some sort of legal bombshell. “I’ll explain in person. Twenty minutes?”

Helen hesitated. Something about this smelled weird, and it wasn’t the leftover funeral deviled eggs in her fridge.

“Alright,” she said cautiously.

⸻

Twenty-three minutes later (Helen timed it), Mr. Richards knocked on her door, holding a leather briefcase and wearing an expression that suggested he was either about to change her life or ask for a kidney.

“Helen,” he said with a gentle nod, “thank you for seeing me. I know it’s been a hard week.”

She gestured to the kitchen table. “Coffee?”

“No, thank you. I’ll keep this brief.”

He opened the briefcase, pulled out a stack of papers, and adjusted his glasses in the way lawyers do right before the drama.

“It’s about the life insurance policy,” he began.

Helen crossed her arms. “It was paid up, wasn’t it? Roger kept everything neat and tidy — even his complaints.”

“Oh yes,” Mr. Richards nodded. “Paid up and current. But… well, Roger made a mistake.”

Helen blinked. “A mistake?”

He tapped the paper in front of him. “When he last updated your insurance, he meant to reduce his own policy and increase yours. You know, in case you passed before him.”

Helen snorted. “Because I was ‘dumber than a box of rocks,’ right?”

Mr. Richards cleared his throat. “He… may have used those words. But the point is, he accidentally did the exact opposite. He increased his policy significantly and lowered yours. Quite substantially.”

Helen stared at him.

“You mean—he made himself rich in the event of his own death. When what he meant to do was make himself rich in the event of my death!”

“Well… yes. That’s one way to put it.”

She let out a laugh so sharp and unexpected it startled both of them.

“Oh, Roger,” she said, shaking her head. “If only you’d taken your own advice. ‘Slow and steady,’ huh? Maybe then you wouldn’t have fat-fingered your way into making me a millionaire.”

Mr. Richards smiled nervously. “Yes, well. It appears you are now the sole beneficiary of a very, very generous policy.”

Helen leaned back in her chair, still chuckling.

“Well,” she said, “that’s something.”

⸻

Three months later, the rocking chair was gone. Donated to the church rummage sale, along with every one of Roger’s custom-engraved golf balls and his “World’s Best Griller” apron.

In its place sat a gleaming, leather, state-of-the-art massage recliner that made Helen feel like Cleopatra every time she pushed the button and reclined into blissful oblivion. She called it “The Throne.”

Also in her driveway: a cherry red Corvette.

It had taken her two hours and exactly one mimosa to buy it online. The salesman at the dealership said he’d never seen a widow move so fast.

“Well,” she said sweetly, “I figured I better do this slow and steady… so I don’t screw it up.” Then she floored it and left the poor man coughing in her tire smoke.

In the spring, she took a cruise. Alone.

She flirted with a retired dentist from Tampa, danced with an instructor named Mateo who smelled like coconuts and mischief, and drank piña coladas with her toes in the water while sending selfies to her sister-in-law, who’d always said Helen would “fade away without Roger.”

Instead, she glowed.

And in between all that? Helen had started a business.

It began small — homemade candles, sold online under the name “Slow & Steady” as a joke. But something about her branding resonated with the women of Springfield.

Maybe it was the sassy quotes on the labels:
• “Burn, baby, burn — like my patience used to.”
• “For the woman who got called ‘emotional’ one too many times.”
• “This scent is called ‘freedom and eucalyptus.’”

The orders poured in. Helen hired two of her neighbors, opened a local boutique, and before long, she was Springfield’s most unlikely entrepreneur.

At her launch party, someone asked what Roger would think of all this.

Helen smirked.

“Oh, he’d have an opinion. And he’d give it whether I asked or not. But I think deep down — really deep down, beneath all that know-it-all nonsense — he’d be proud. Surprised, but proud.”

Then she raised her glass of champagne and added, “And maybe next time, he’ll read the fine print before playing God.”

Everyone laughed.

⸻

That night, back home, Helen stood in her doorway and looked out at the Corvette. The porch light glinted off its hood like a wink from the universe.

She thought about the woman she’d been a year ago. Tired. Timid. Always second-guessing.

She thought about the woman she was now. A little bolder. A little funnier. Still grieving, sure — but growing, too.

Roger had tried to define her story.

But in the end, his mistake had handed her the pen.

And Helen? She was just getting started.

She walked into her living room, reclined in The Throne, and smiled to herself.

Slow and steady had won the race.

But fast and free felt pretty damn good, too.