Chương 13
“I thought saying that was gratitude.”
“Sometimes it was.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“It was also an excuse.”
Patrick said nothing.
Laura looked at her hands.
Denise continued.
“It let me feel like the arrangement was somehow natural.”
I did not know what to say.
So I said the true thing.
“I resented all of you sometimes.”
Patrick nodded.
“You should have.”
“No.”
“I mean it.”
“I resented Fiona too.”
That startled them.
“She drove me crazy.”
Daniel looked at me with the beginning of a smile.
I pointed at him.
“You too.”
“Obviously.”
“She hid pills under her tongue because she thought the blood pressure medication made her ankles ugly.”
Laura laughed suddenly.
“That is so Mom.”
“She lied about falling.”
Denise nodded.
“She did that with Dad too.”
“She once accused me of watering down her coffee.”
Patrick looked up.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
That got a laugh out of him.
A real one.
Small.
Embarrassed.
Human.
For about thirty seconds, the room belonged to a family instead of a dispute.
Then Patrick looked at the folder.
“How much did she leave you?”
The laughter disappeared.
I sighed.
“Two accounts totaling a little over two hundred thousand dollars.”
Nobody spoke.
Patrick looked away first.
Laura whispered, “Oh.”
Denise closed her eyes.
Daniel did not move.
Patrick said, “And the box?”
“There was jewelry.”
“Anything valuable?”
“Not especially.”
“Cash?”
“No.”
He nodded once.
I watched him calculate despite himself.
That irritated me.
Then I remembered Fiona’s line about people being ugly sometimes.
I had spent twelve years counting medication doses, grocery prices, and hours of sleep.
Money trained people to count.
Patrick said, “What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to have some idea.”
“I don’t.”
“You went to a lawyer.”
Denise looked at me sharply.
“You did?”
“Yes.”
Patrick laughed bitterly.
“That was fast.”
Daniel stood.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Turn that into something dirty.”
“I didn’t.”
“You were about to.”
Patrick pushed back from the table.
“She finds out Mom left her two hundred grand and the first thing she does is call a lawyer.”
“The first thing she did was go to the bank because Mom told her to.”
Patrick looked at me.
“So Mom told you about the box before she died?”
“She told me the pillow was mine.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“You expect us to believe she never said anything else?”
My skin went cold.
There it was.
The accusation Fiona had predicted.
Denise said, “Patrick.”
“No, I’m asking.”
“You’re accusing.”
“I’m asking because it matters.”
I looked at him.
“She did not tell me there was money.”
“Did she ever talk about leaving you something?”
“No.”
“Did you ever talk to her about what you’d done for her?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“A fair one.”
Daniel stepped between us.
“No.”
I touched his arm.
“Let him.”
Patrick’s jaw tightened.
I said, “Yes.”
He blinked.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I talked about what I did.”
Silence.
“I complained.”
Daniel looked at me.
“I cried.”
I continued.
“I said I was tired.”
Patrick stared.
“I told her sometimes I felt trapped.”
Laura looked down.
“I told her I was angry none of you stayed longer.”
Denise closed her eyes.
“I never asked her for money.”
Patrick said nothing.
“I never asked her for land.”
Nothing.
“I never knew there was anything to ask for.”
His face changed slightly.
I leaned forward.
“If you want to challenge what she left me, do it.”
Daniel turned.
“Mabel.”
I ignored him.
“Hire a lawyer.”
Patrick’s mouth opened.
“Ask for records.”
I pointed to the folder.
“Question every signature.”
“Mabel.”
“But do not make me spend the rest of my life proving twelve years happened.”
The room went still.
Patrick looked away.
I hated the way my voice shook.
I hated even more that tears had started.
Denise whispered, “Nobody can say they didn’t happen.”
Patrick sat down again.
“No.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“I’m sorry.”
I did not answer.
He looked at me.
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“I’m not saying I won’t have questions.”
“You should have questions.”
“I just don’t want to be the person Mom apparently expected me to be.”
Daniel gave him a tired look.
“You already asked about the money four times.”
Patrick almost smiled.
“Fair.”
Laura reached for one of the cookies.
She broke it in half and immediately put both pieces back.
“No one is eating these.”
“They were on sale,” Patrick said.
“Now I know where your financial instincts come from.”
The joke landed badly.
Laura froze.
Patrick stared at her.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
She laughed too.
Denise did not.
She was still reading Walter’s letter.
Her finger rested beside Curtis’s name.
After a while she said, “I want to find Walter.”
Patrick’s laughter disappeared.
“Why?”
“Because I want to know what Mom knew.”
“You know enough.”
Denise lifted her eyes.
“No.”
Patrick’s face tightened.
“Some things are better left alone.”
She stared at him.
“You really learned nothing tonight.”
He flinched.
Daniel asked, “Do you know where Walter is?”
Patrick shook his head.
“I haven’t seen him in years.”
I said, “The letter is eight months old.”
Patrick looked at me.
“What?”
“He wrote Fiona eight months ago.”
Denise sat straighter.
“So he’s alive.”
“Probably.”
“Then I’m finding him.”
Patrick stood.
“Denise.”
“No.”
She folded Walter’s letter carefully.
“You had twenty-seven years to decide what I could handle.”
Her voice was quiet.
“You’re done deciding.”
Patrick did not argue.
Laura looked at me.
“What happens to Mom’s funeral?”
The question sounded almost absurd after everything else.
Yet it was the most immediate thing in the room.
“We bury her,” I said.
“When?”
“Saturday.”
“And after?”
I looked at Fiona’s handwriting spread across Patrick’s table.
“After that, we stop pretending the funeral is the hardest part.”
May you like
Saturday morning arrived with a sky the color of old dishwater and a thin crust of ice along the church steps.
Fiona would have complained about the salt stains on everybody’s shoes.
