Chapter 8: What Patricia Did Next
She didn't call that night.
She didn't call the next morning either, and that worried me more than if she had.
Patricia's silences were never empty.
They were preparation.
I spent the night in the guest room — my own house, my guest room, the fever finally breaking around three in the morning in a long, damp wave that left me exhausted and clearer than I'd felt in weeks.
Ethan slept on the sofa.
Diane and Rose took the second bedroom, and I didn't think twice about it.
Rose needed a warm place and Diane needed to not be alone, and the house was large enough that none of us had to pretend the situation was anything other than what it was.
In the morning I called my attorney.
His name was Philip Garrett and he had handled my father's estate and the Trust and three other matters over the years, and he was the kind of man who answered his phone before eight without complaint.
"The Trust clause will hold," he said, when I'd explained.
"The contribution argument has no footing.
I'll send the filing to Patricia's attorney this morning."
"There's a second matter." I told him about Marcus Hale and the suppression agreement and the Harwick Property Consulting messages on Diane's phone.
Philip was quiet for a moment.
"That's a more serious exposure for Patricia than the property claim."
"I know."
"Do you want to move on it now or hold it?"
"Hold it.
For now it's leverage.
I want her to know we have it without forcing her into a corner she can't exit.
Cornered people make unpredictable moves."
"Agreed." A pause.
"How are you?"
"I had a fever last night."
"That's not what I asked."
I looked out the kitchen window.
The garden was the same as it had always been — my father's roses along the back fence, overgrown now but still blooming, stubborn and red in the early light.
"I'm all right," I said.
"I think I've been all right for longer than I realized.
I just couldn't see it from inside the marriage."
"Your father would have enjoyed last night," Philip said.
"He would have been insufferable about it," I said.
"He would have reminded me he told me so approximately four hundred times."
Philip laughed.
"I'll have the filing sent by nine."
I made coffee.
Ethan appeared in the kitchen doorway looking like a man who had not slept and knew he deserved it.
"Coffee?" I said.
"Please."
I poured a second cup.
He sat at the table and wrapped both hands around it and didn't speak for a while.
"I called Serena last night," he said finally.
"After everything.
We talked for a long time."
"How is she?"
"Angry.
Not at me — or not only at me.
Mostly at Patricia." He looked into the cup.
"She said Patricia had been managing her expectations for months.
Telling her what I was like, what I wanted, what the timeline would be.
She said she felt like she'd been — guided.
Into a position."
"She was."
"She's a good person," he said.
"She didn't know she was being used."
"Most people Patricia uses don't."
He was quiet.
Then: "Why did you help me last night?
You didn't have to.
You had the deed.
You had the Trust.
You could have had us all removed and been done with it."
I sat down across from him.
"I helped Diane.
And Rose." I looked at him.
"You were adjacent."
He accepted that.
It was the honest answer and he knew it.
"What do I do about Patricia?" he asked.
"That's yours to decide.
She's your mother."
"She tried to hide my daughter from me."
"Yes."
"She arranged a relationship for me without telling me the divorce wasn't even real yet."
"Yes."
"She's been — managing me." He said the word like it tasted wrong.
"For how long?"
"I don't know.
Long enough that she had systems in place.
Marcus Hale isn't a new contact.
The Harwick company has been registered for six years." I paused.
"Long enough that it became invisible to you."
He nodded slowly.
Rose made a sound from the other room — a small, awake sound, the sound of a morning beginning.
Diane's voice followed it, soft and low.
Ethan looked toward the sound.
"I'd like to meet her properly," he said.
"If Diane is willing."
"Ask her," I said.
"Not me."
He stood.
Hesitated in the doorway.
"Claire." He turned back.
"I'm sorry.
For all of it.
I know that doesn't—"
"It doesn't fix anything," I said.
"But it's a start." I picked up my coffee.
"Go meet your daughter."
He went.
I sat alone in the kitchen for a while.
The roses along the back fence caught the morning light.
My father had planted them the year I was born.
He'd never explained why roses specifically, and I'd never asked, and now I couldn't, and I found I didn't mind not knowing.
Some things were just true without needing a reason.
My phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
*You think you're very clever.
You have no idea what I've already set in motion.
— P*
I set the phone face-down on the table.
Then I picked it up again and forwarded the message to Philip.
May you like
Patricia wasn't finished.
But for the first time in a long time, neither was I.
