Chapter 11: The Last Move
Richard's response came the following Monday.
Not through his solicitor.
Not through an unknown number.
He came to my workplace.
Philip called me out of a meeting at half past eleven, and I walked into the reception area to find Richard standing near the door in his dark coat, holding his gloves in one hand, looking like a man who had decided to be reasonable.
"I just want to talk," he said.
"Five minutes."
"You can call Margaret Hale," I said.
"Emma." He lowered his voice.
"Patricia withdrew her statement.
I know that was you.
I'm not angry." He paused.
"I'm asking you to consider what a full hearing costs both of us.
The time.
The money.
The things that come out in court that can't be put back."
"What things?"
"Your mother wasn't perfect.
Neither am I.
Neither are you." He spread his hands slightly — a gesture of openness, of reasonableness, of a man who simply wanted peace.
"I'm prepared to offer you a settlement.
A fair one.
A cash payment, in lieu of the property.
Enough to buy somewhere for you and Sophie.
Enough to make this worth your while."
I looked at him.
"You want to pay me to go away," I said.
"I want to resolve this without a court tearing apart your mother's memory."
"Her memory is fine," I said.
"She was a good woman who made a mistake at nineteen and spent sixty years being kind and generous and present.
That's not a memory that needs protecting from a courtroom."
His expression didn't change.
But his hands, holding the gloves, tightened.
"The settlement offer expires Friday," he said.
"Then it expires Friday," I said.
He looked at me for a long moment.
The reasonable expression held.
Behind it, something else — not anger, not quite.
Something colder.
"You know," he said quietly, "my father loved your mother very much.
I believe she loved him.
Whatever happened with the house — I believe he would have wanted her to be comfortable.
I believe he would have wanted the family to stay together." He paused.
"I'm not a villain, Emma.
I'm a man who made some poor decisions about paperwork."
"You froze my mother's estate," I said.
"You filed a false counter-application.
You used a grieving woman who had spent twenty-five years looking for her birth mother as a legal instrument.
You sent threatening messages to my phone.
You called my employer." I kept my voice level.
"And you filed a motion questioning my fitness as a mother."
He said nothing.
"Those aren't poor decisions about paperwork," I said.
"Goodbye, Richard."
I walked back through the door.
Philip was waiting in the corridor.
"Do you need me to ask him to leave?" he asked.
"He's already leaving," I said.
I went back to my desk.
My hands were steady.
I noticed that specifically — I had expected them to shake, and they didn't.
Margaret called at two o'clock.
"His solicitor has made contact," she said.
"They're requesting a pre-hearing mediation."
"He came to my office this morning.
Offered a cash settlement."
A pause.
"How much?"
"He didn't name a figure."
"Interesting." Another pause.
"Emma, mediation is not inherently a bad option.
It can produce a faster resolution.
But given the strength of our position—"
"I don't want a settlement," I said.
"I want the house."
"Then we go to the full hearing."
"Yes."
"Three weeks," Margaret said.
"Hold steady."
That evening, I called Patricia.
She had driven past the house that afternoon, she told me.
She hadn't gone in — she hadn't felt ready — but she had parked outside and looked at it for a while.
"The roses are still there," she said.
"Along the south wall."
"They bloom in June," I said.
"She was very particular about pruning them."
"I thought it would feel strange," Patricia said.
"Looking at it.
But it felt—" She paused.
"It felt like something I recognized.
Which doesn't make sense."
"Maybe it does," I said.
We talked for an hour.
About our mother.
About the things Patricia had imagined, over the years, about the woman who had given her up.
About the things I remembered — small things, the kind that don't seem important until they're all you have left.
When we said goodnight, Patricia said: "I'll be at the hearing.
If that's all right."
"It's more than all right," I said.
I put Sophie to bed.
Read her two stories.
Sat on the edge of her bed in the dark after she fell asleep, listening to her breathe.
Three weeks.
Then it would be over, one way or another.
But for the first time since Christmas, I felt the weight of it differently.
May you like
Not lighter, exactly.
More evenly held.
