Chapter 5: Lunch With Patricia
She chose the restaurant.
Of course she did.
A place she knew, where the staff recognized her, where she could feel the ground was hers before I even sat down.
I noticed all of it and said nothing.
We ordered.
She talked about the weather, about a neighbor's renovation, about a television program she'd been watching.
I let her talk.
I drank my water and waited.
When the food arrived, she set her fork down and folded her hands.
"I want to apologize," she said.
"If anything I said caused hurt feelings, that was never my intention."
*If.* I noted the word.
"I hear you," I said.
She seemed to relax slightly.
"Good.
Because I genuinely care about you and Daniel, and I care about your brother.
I hope you know that."
"Do you know his name?" I asked.
She blinked.
"I'm sorry?"
"My brother.
Do you know his name?"
A small pause.
"Of course I do."
"What is it?"
Her chin lifted slightly.
"Nathan."
"You've never said it to me.
Not once.
Not at dinner, not today.
I've been with Daniel for three years and you have never said my brother's name to me."
She picked up her fork.
"I'm sure that's not —"
"I've been counting," I said.
"Since that dinner.
Every time you referred to him, you said 'he' or 'him' or 'your brother.' Never Nathan." I kept my voice level.
"That's not an accident, Patricia.
That's a choice."
Her fork went back down.
"I think you're being —"
"I'm being accurate." I leaned forward slightly.
"You called Carol to try to remove him from my wedding.
You found a stranger — a coordinator you know — to give you professional language for why his face shouldn't be in the photographs.
You tried to get Daniel to overrule me.
You tried to get Robert to talk to me directly.
That's four separate attempts.
Over one person.
Over my brother walking me down the aisle after our father d*ed."
The word landed.
She didn't flinch, but something behind her eyes did.
"I was trying to think practically —"
"You were trying to think about your fireplace.
You said so."
"That is not what I —"
"'What goes above our fireplace.' Your exact words.
I haven't forgotten them.
I don't think I'll ever forget them."
She was quiet.
A couple at the next table laughed at something.
The sound felt very far away.
"You want me to say I was wrong," Patricia said.
"I want you to understand what you actually did.
Whether you say it or not is up to you."
"And what did I actually do, in your view?"
"You looked at my brother and decided he was a problem to be managed.
Not a person.
Not family.
A visual inconsistency." I watched her face.
"He wore our father's cufflinks.
He practiced for weeks.
He called the church himself.
He walked me down that aisle with more grace and more love than anyone else in that building could have managed.
And you tried to stop it because of how it would look on your wall."
Patricia's hand moved to her water glass.
She didn't pick it up.
"I love your son," I said.
"I am going to be in your life for a long time.
And Nathan is going to be in your life for a long time, because he is part of mine.
I need you to decide what you want that to look like."
"Are you threatening me?"
"I'm telling you the truth.
There's a difference."
She looked at me for a long moment.
I held her gaze and didn't look away.
"I didn't realize," she said finally, "how much he meant to you."
I stared at her.
"He's my brother."
"I know, but —"
"He is my brother.
He is the only person left who remembers my father the same way I do.
He is the person who practiced walking me down an aisle for weeks because he wanted to do it right.
How much he means to me should never have needed explaining."
The check came.
She reached for it automatically.
I put my hand on it first.
"I've got it," I said.
She let go.
We walked out into the afternoon light and she said goodbye in a voice that was smaller than the one she'd walked in with.
I watched her go to her car.
I watched her sit in it for a moment before she started the engine.
I didn't feel triumphant.
I felt tired and clear, the way you feel after something hard is finally finished.
May you like
But it wasn't finished.
I got a call the next morning that told me it wasn't finished at all.
