Chapter 8: What She Said When She Thought It Was Just the Two of Them
Diane opened the door before he knocked.
She'd been watching for him.
He told me everything that night, word for word.
He'd recorded forty-two minutes of it.
I listened to the whole thing sitting at the kitchen table while he made tea neither of us drank.
She started with family.
With memory.
With the summer Ethan was seven and his grandfather had taught him to fish at the lake behind the old house.
She talked about what that land meant.
What the house meant.
What it had cost her to hold it together after her father died.
Ethan let her talk.
Then she said: "I need you to drop this."
"I can't do that."
"Ethan.
Listen to me.
What you're doing — what you think you're doing — it will destroy things you cannot rebuild."
"What things?"
"This family."
"Patricia is family."
"Patricia chose to leave."
"You made her believe she had a reason to."
Diane's voice shifted.
"I made decisions that were necessary.
Your grandfather was not capable of making sound financial decisions in his final years.
Someone had to protect what he'd built."
"By forging a witness signature?"
Silence.
A long one.
"Where did you hear that?"
"Helen Marsh."
Another silence.
"Helen Marsh is an old woman who doesn't remember what she signed."
"She remembers clearly enough to give a notarized statement."
"That statement won't hold up."
"Maybe.
Maybe not." Ethan's voice on the recording was steady.
I was proud of him.
"But here's what I know, Mom.
I know what the original will says.
I know about the letter you sent back.
I know about the key.
And now I know about Helen Marsh." A pause.
"What else is there?"
She didn't answer right away.
When she did, her voice was very quiet.
"I did what I did for you.
You need to understand that.
Everything — the house, the land, the money — it was always going to come to you.
I was protecting your inheritance."
"I never asked you to."
"You didn't have to ask.
You're my son."
"Patricia is your sister."
"Patricia—" She stopped.
Started again.
"Patricia and I were never close.
You know that."
"I know you told me that.
I don't know if it's true."
A chair scraped on the recording.
Footsteps.
"I need you to think very carefully," Diane said.
"About what happens to me if you continue with this.
About what a crjme investigation does to a family.
About what your children will one day read about their grandmother."
"Don't."
"I'm asking you to think about the future."
"I am thinking about the future." His voice didn't rise.
"I'm thinking about a woman who spent eleven years believing her father didn't love her because you sent a letter back.
I'm thinking about what we teach our children about what's right.
That's the future I'm thinking about."
Silence.
"If you do this," Diane said, "I won't forgive you."
"I know."
"Ethan—"
"I love you, Mom.
I'll always love you.
But I'm not going to stop."
He left after that.
On the recording, after the door closed, there were eleven seconds of silence.
Then Diane picked up her phone and made a call.
"It's me," she said.
"We have a problem."
The recording ended there.
Ethan looked at me across the table.
"She called someone," I said.
"Yes."
"Who?"
May you like
"I don't know." He wrapped both hands around his mug.
"But Grace needs to hear this tonight."
