Chapter 3: The Woman at the Back of the Room
Her name was Dorothea.
Everyone called her Dot.
She had been my mother's closest friend since they were both twenty-two years old, working the same reception desk at a dental clinic in town.
They had been bridesmaids at each other's weddings.
They had sat together in hospital waiting rooms more times than either of them wanted to count.
She was seventy-one years old, small, and wore a dark blue dress that looked like she had chosen it deliberately — not for a celebration, but for something else entirely.
I had not invited her.
She walked toward me through the murmuring crowd, and the guests parted slightly without seeming to realize they were doing it.
Dad saw her at the same moment I did.
His face changed.
"Dot," he said.
The word came out flat.
Not a greeting.
Something closer to a warning.
She didn't look at him.
She looked at me.
"Your mother called me," she said.
"Three weeks before she p\*ssed.
She told me everything."
Lisa made a sound beside me — not quite a word.
"She knew?" I said.
"She found out about eight months before the end." Dot's voice was steady.
"She didn't tell you because she didn't want you to carry it while you were still in school.
She said that was her job.
Not yours."
The room had gone very quiet.
Not completely — there was still the sound of glasses, a chair scraping somewhere near the back — but the table nearest to us had stopped pretending to have a conversation.
Dad stepped forward.
"This is not the place—"
"She also called a solicitor," Dot said, still looking at me.
"Two weeks before she p\*ssed.
I went with her.
I sat in that office and watched her sign the papers."
Lisa grabbed Dad's sleeve.
"What papers?
What is she talking about?"
He didn't answer her.
His eyes were fixed on Dot.
"What did she sign?" I asked.
Dot reached into her handbag.
She took out a folded envelope and held it toward me.
"She changed the will," Dot said.
"The house doesn't go to your father.
It never did — not after she found out.
It goes to you.
It has gone to you since the day she signed those papers."
The envelope was in my hand.
I could feel the weight of it.
Dad's voice dropped to something I had never heard from him before.
Quiet and hard at the same time.
"You have no idea what you've just done," he said to Dot.
She looked at him then.
Directly.
Without flinching.
"I know exactly what I've done," she said.
"I promised her I would be here today.
I kept my promise."
Lisa turned on me.
Her composure had cracked completely now, the careful wedding-day smile entirely gone.
"That will is worthless," she said.
"She wasn't in her right mind at the end.
Everyone knows that.
We'll contest it.
We'll have it thrown out."
"You're welcome to try," Dot said calmly.
"The solicitor has a full record.
So do I.
And your sister was perfectly clear-minded when she signed.
I watched her read every line."
I looked down at the envelope in my hand.
Somewhere behind me, a woman at one of the tables said something to the man beside her.
I didn't catch the words.
I didn't need to.
Dad reached out and closed his hand around my wrist — not grabbing, but firm.
"Give me that envelope," he said quietly.
"Right now.
Before this goes any further."
I looked at his hand on my wrist.
Then I looked up at him.
"No," I said.
He tightened his grip.
And then a man's voice came from somewhere to my left — someone I didn't recognize, a guest, older, in a grey suit.
"I'd let go of her," the man said simply.
Dad released my wrist.
I tucked the envelope against my side and looked at Dot.
"Can we sit down somewhere?" I said.
"There's a room off the lobby," she said.
"I checked when I arrived."
We walked toward the door together.
Behind us, I heard Lisa's voice rising again, sharp and unraveling, directed at my father.
"You told me the house was ours.
You told me it was settled.
You told me—"
The door closed behind us, and her voice cut off.
Dot put her hand briefly on my arm as we walked.
"She loved you very much," she said.
"She wanted you to know that she handled it.
That she didn't leave you with nothing."
My throat tightened.
I kept walking.
"What's on the USB drive?" I asked.
Dot glanced at me sideways.
"She recorded them," she said.
"One evening when she was supposed to be resting.
She left her phone running in the kitchen.
She sent me the file the same night." She paused.
"I gave a copy to the solicitor.
And I made sure you had one too."
I stopped walking.
"You're the one who left the USB drive," I said.
Dot looked straight ahead.
"It arrived in your mailbox six days ago," she said.
"I wasn't sure you'd use it today.
But I hoped you would."
We reached the side room.
She pushed the door open.
Inside, there was a small table and four chairs.
Nothing else.
I sat down.
Dot sat across from me.
She folded her hands on the table and waited.
I opened the envelope.
And then my phone buzzed in my pocket.
A message from a number I didn't recognize.
*We need to talk before you read whatever is in that envelope.
May you like
Meet me outside.
I know what your father did to the first will.*
