Chapter 6: What Patricia Kept
Patricia lived forty minutes away in a small house with a front porch and two cats that watched me from the windowsill as I knocked.
I had left Lily with Daniel, which felt like a risk until I remembered that Daniel had stood up at that table last night and said *she's going to find out anyway*.
That was enough for me.
Patricia opened the door before I could knock a second time.
"I was watching for your car," she said.
"Come in."
Her living room was warm and a little cluttered — books on every surface, a quilt folded over the arm of the sofa.
She gestured for me to sit and disappeared into the kitchen.
She came back with two mugs of tea and an envelope.
She set the envelope on the table between us.
It was sealed.
My name was written on the front in handwriting I recognized immediately.
My hands went still.
"He gave it to me," Patricia said.
"About three weeks before he passed.
He said, *Patricia, if something happens and Claire doesn't get what I've left her, I need you to give her this.*" She looked at me steadily.
"He used your name.
He was very specific."
"Why didn't you give it to me at the funeral?" I asked.
"Because Margaret was watching everyone.
All day.
And I — " She stopped.
"I was afraid of her.
I'm not proud of that.
But I was.
And then the weeks went by and I kept telling myself it wasn't the right moment and then last night I watched her tell that little girl she didn't belong at the table and I thought, *enough.*"
I looked at the envelope.
"He also told me," Patricia said carefully, "that if you ever needed a witness — someone who could speak to his state of mind in those last months — I should say yes."
I looked up at her.
"He was sharp as a tack," she said.
"Right up until the last two weeks.
I saw him every Sunday.
We played cards.
He beat me every single time." Her voice caught slightly.
"He knew exactly what he was doing.
All of it."
I picked up the envelope.
"Go ahead," she said.
"Read it here if you want.
I'll be quiet."
I opened it.
Richard's handwriting covered two pages.
I won't share every word — some of it belongs only to me and to Lily.
But near the bottom of the first page, he had written:
*Mom will fight this.
She's been fighting it since the day I told her I was changing the deed.
She said you married me for money.
I told her you married me six weeks after my diagnosis, when I had already told you what the future looked like, and you stayed anyway.
She didn't have an answer for that.*
*There is a second envelope with my attorney.
It contains a full account of my mental competency assessments from the fourteen months prior to the deed change.
Three separate doctors.
All on record.
She cannot win this, Claire.
Not if you fight.*
*Fight.*
I folded the letter and held it against my chest for a moment.
Patricia didn't say anything.
She just reached over and put her hand over mine, and we sat like that in her warm, cluttered living room while the cats watched from the windowsill and the tea went cold.
"Thank you," I finally said.
May you like
"Don't thank me," she said.
"Just make sure that little girl knows she belongs."
