Chapter 5: What Patricia Saw
I asked her to hold on.
I walked to the back door and told Mia I needed ten minutes inside.
She looked up from her chalk drawing — a house, a sun, a figure with long hair that I understood was meant to be her mother, who had been gone for two years — and said okay.
I went to the kitchen table and sat down.
"Tell me what you saw," I said.
Patricia Wren spoke slowly, like someone who had rehearsed the order of things but was still nervous about saying them out loud.
She had been the afternoon nurse on my father's ward for the last two weeks of his admission.
She knew his chart.
She knew his medication schedule.
She had been in and out of his room multiple times a day.
"That afternoon," she said, "your mother came in with two men.
One was older, carrying a briefcase.
The other was younger.
I didn't know either of them."
"What time was this?"
"Just after two.
I know because I had just finished the two o'clock medication round."
"Was my father awake?"
A pause.
"He was when they arrived.
Your mother spoke to him for a few minutes.
I stepped out to give them privacy.
When I came back in about fifteen minutes later to check his vitals, he was asleep and the men were gone."
"Did you see him sign anything?"
"No.
I wasn't in the room the whole time.
But —" She stopped.
"But what?"
"When I came back in, your mother was putting something into her bag.
A folder, I think.
And your father — he looked distressed.
Even asleep, his face was tight.
I asked your mother if everything was all right and she said yes, he was just tired."
"Did he say anything before he fell asleep?
Anything at all?"
Another pause, longer this time.
"He said a name," Patricia said quietly.
"I almost didn't hear it.
He said it while your mother was still in the room, just before his eyes closed."
I waited.
"He said your name," she said.
"He said it twice."
I put my hand flat on the table.
"Would you be willing to put that in writing?" I asked.
"A statement.
What you saw, what time it was, what he said.
I'm not asking you to go to court tomorrow.
I'm asking you to write down what you remember while it's still clear."
"That's why I called," she said.
"I already wrote it down.
I wrote it down the week after he passed because I couldn't stop thinking about it.
I have it here."
"Can you send it to me?"
"I can bring it.
I'd rather bring it in person."
We agreed on a time.
Before she hung up, she said one more thing.
"He was a gentle man, your father.
He used to ask me about my grandchildren.
I don't think he knew what he was signing.
I don't think he understood what was happening in that room."
I thanked her and set the phone down.
For a moment I didn't move.
I looked at the surface of the table, at the grain of the wood, at the small scratch near the edge that Mia had made with a fork when she was five and I hadn't been able to bring myself to sand it out.
Then I picked the phone back up and called Daniel.
"I need you to clear your morning tomorrow," I said.
"We're going to Gerald Holt's office at nine.
And I have a nurse who was on Dad's ward.
She was in the room."
Silence on his end.
Then: "She saw it?"
"Enough of it."
I heard him exhale.
It was a long, slow sound — the sound of a man who had been holding something in his chest for weeks and had just been given permission to put it down.
"What do we do about Mum?" he said.
"Nothing yet.
We don't tell her anything.
We don't respond to her messages.
We let her think she's ahead of this."
"And then?"
"And then we walk into that attorney's office with a nurse's written statement, your account of that afternoon, a text message she sent you trying to suppress your testimony, and a medical record showing Dad's cognitive state."
Daniel was quiet for a moment.
"She's going to say we're doing this for the money."
"I know."
"Are we?"
I looked out the window.
Mia had finished her chalk drawing and was sitting beside it, just looking at it.
"I'm doing it because she put her hand over my daughter's mouth," I said.
"The money is my father's.
It should go where he actually intended it to go.
But that's not why I'm doing this."
Daniel didn't say anything for a moment.
Then: "I'll be there at eight-thirty."
After I hung up, my phone lit up with a message.
My mother's number.
*I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday.
Can we talk?
I only want what's best for everyone.*
I set the phone face-down on the table.
Outside, Mia stood up, looked at her chalk drawing one more time, and walked back toward the house.
When she came through the door she looked at me with that careful, measuring look she had.
"Are we going to be okay?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"We are."
She nodded, satisfied, and went to wash her hands.
I turned my phone back over.
My mother's message was still on the screen.
May you like
I read it once more, then opened my email and began typing a message to an estate litigation attorney whose name I had looked up that morning and not yet used.
I used it now.
