Chapter 7: What Patrice Was Really Planning
Lily ate her breakfast at the kitchen table, chattering about her rabbit and her teacher and a girl at school named Becca who had a lunchbox shaped like a frog.
I listened to every word.
Clara sat across from us, quieter, watching.
Patrice made herself busy at the counter, her back to the room, but she was listening.
I could tell by the way she never quite relaxed her shoulders.
After breakfast, Clara took Lily upstairs to get dressed for school.
Patrice drove her — that was the arrangement, apparently.
I stayed at the kitchen table with my tea.
When Patrice came back downstairs, she stopped in the kitchen doorway.
"I think we should talk," she said.
"I think so too," I said.
She sat down across from me, folded her hands on the table, and looked at me with the expression of someone about to be very reasonable.
"I know this looks a certain way," she said.
"You've come a long way.
You're worried about Clara.
That's natural."
"It is."
"But you have to understand the situation from where I'm standing.
Clara is ill.
The condition will progress.
She needs consistent, stable support — not disruption."
"I agree with that completely," I said.
She paused.
She had expected more resistance.
"Then you understand why it's important that we don't overwhelm her right now."
"What I don't understand," I said, "is why you've been speaking to a family lawyer."
The hands on the table didn't move.
But something in her face did — a very small recalibration.
"I don't know where you heard that."
"It doesn't matter where I heard it.
Is it true?"
"I've been exploring options.
For Lily's future.
That's responsible planning, not—"
"Whose idea was it to explore those options?
Yours or Clara's?"
A pause.
"Clara is not always in a position to think clearly about long-term—"
"Her doctor says she is."
"Doctors see patients for thirty minutes at a time." Patrice's voice stayed level, but the pleasantness was gone now.
"I live here.
I see what the hard days look like.
I see when she can't get out of bed.
I see when Lily has to make her own breakfast because her mother can't manage it."
"Then the answer," I said, "is more support for Clara.
Not legal proceedings to remove her daughter."
"Nobody is removing anyone."
"Then what exactly are you filing for?"
The silence stretched.
"Patrice," I said.
"I'm going to ask you something directly, and I'd like a direct answer.
Are you pursuing any form of legal guardianship or custody arrangement for Lily without Clara's full knowledge and consent?"
She looked at me for a long moment.
"I am doing what is best for that child."
"That is not an answer."
She stood up.
"I think you should consider whether arriving here unannounced, after fifteen years of absence, is really the position from which you want to be making accusations."
"I'm not making accusations.
I'm asking questions.
And the fact that you won't answer them directly tells me quite a lot."
She picked up her car keys from the counter.
"Clara needs rest.
I'd appreciate it if you kept your visit short."
She walked out of the kitchen.
A moment later, the front door opened and closed.
I sat at the table and looked at the children's drawings on the refrigerator.
Lily's name was signed at the bottom of each one in large, careful letters.
One drawing showed three figures — a tall one, a small one, and a rabbit.
Above them, in a child's handwriting: *My family.*
There were only two human figures in the drawing.
I heard Clara's footsteps on the stairs.
She came into the kitchen, saw my face, and stopped.
"What did she say to you?" Clara asked.
"She didn't answer my question," I said.
"Clara, I need you to look at something."
I took out my phone.
Diane had sent me something that morning, before I boarded the flight — a photograph she had taken through Clara's front window two weeks earlier, when she'd seen the lawyer's car in the driveway.
She'd recognized the firm's name on the side of the briefcase the man was carrying.
She'd looked them up.
They specialized in one thing: emergency guardianship petitions.
I set the phone on the table and turned it to face my daughter.
Clara looked at the photograph.
Then at the name of the law firm I had written below it.
Her face went very still.
"She told me he was a financial planner," Clara said.
I didn't say anything.
Clara picked up the phone with both hands and looked at it for a long time.
May you like
When she finally set it down, her voice was quiet and completely steady.
"I want her out of my house," she said.
