Chapter 5: What My Mother Left Behind
Dot was still at the small table when I came back.
The envelope was where I had left it, unopened beside her folded hands.
I sat down and told her everything Patricia had said.
Dot listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"She knew about the will," Dot said.
"Your mother.
She told me she thought he'd already tried to change something.
That's why she moved quickly when she did.
She said she didn't have much time and she wasn't going to waste what was left of it letting him take what was yours."
"She never said a word to me," I said.
"She said you had enough to carry." Dot looked at me directly.
"She was right."
I picked up the envelope.
My name was written on the front in my mother's handwriting — careful, slightly uneven near the end, the way her handwriting had become in the last months.
I opened it.
Inside was a single folded letter and a smaller sealed envelope with the solicitor's contact details printed on the front.
I unfolded the letter.
*My darling,*
*If you're reading this, then Dot kept her promise, and you're somewhere safe.*
*I need you to know that I found out.
I want you to know that I wasn't a fool, and I wasn't helpless.
I made sure of what I could make sure of.*
*The house is yours.
It has always been yours — I bought it before we married, and I should have protected it better from the start.
That was my mistake, and I'm sorry for it.*
*Don't be angry on my behalf.
I made my peace with what he is.
What I could not make peace with was the thought of you being left with nothing because I wasn't here to stop it.*
*You were the best thing I ever did.
Don't let anyone take that from you either.*
*All my love, always —*
*Mom*
I set the letter down on the table.
Dot reached across and put her hand over mine.
She didn't say anything.
She didn't need to.
We sat like that for a while — the noise of the restaurant muffled through the wall, the occasional rise of voices, the sound of the evening coming apart on the other side of the door.
Then Dot said, quietly: "She recorded more than one conversation."
I looked up.
"The file on the USB drive," Dot said.
"There are three recordings.
The one from the kitchen — that's the one you already know about.
But there are two others."
"What are the others?"
"One is a phone call," Dot said.
"Your father, speaking to someone at the solicitor's office.
Asking about the process for submitting an amended document on behalf of a spouse who was — his words — 'not always lucid.'"
My stomach turned.
"And the third?" I said.
Dot's hand was still over mine.
"The third is your mother," she said.
"Speaking alone.
She recorded it herself, deliberately, as a statement.
She describes everything she found out, in her own words, with dates.
She said she wanted there to be a record that couldn't be argued with." Dot paused.
"She said she wanted you to hear her voice one more time, saying something true."
The door to the side room opened.
Lisa stood in the doorway.
Her wedding dress looked wrong now — too bright, too formal, the veil slightly crooked.
She had been crying, and she had not fixed her face before coming in.
She looked at me.
Then at Dot.
Then back at me.
"I need to talk to you," she said.
"Alone."
Dot didn't move.
"Whatever you have to say," I said, "you can say it here."
Lisa hesitated.
Then she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
"I didn't know about the will," she said.
"The forged one.
I didn't know he'd done that."
I said nothing.
"I know how that sounds," she said.
"I know you don't believe me.
But I need you to know that I didn't know."
"You knew he was married to my mother," I said.
"You knew she was sick.
You were in that house with him while she was upstairs."
Lisa flinched.
"I know," she said.
Her voice broke slightly on the word.
"I know what I did.
I'm not — I'm not trying to excuse that."
"Then what are you trying to do?" I said.
She looked at the table.
"He told me the house was already sorted.
That it was in his name.
That your mother had agreed to everything years ago." She looked up.
"I believed him.
I shouldn't have, but I did."
"Did you know about the papers he wanted her to sign?" I said.
"Before she p\*ssed?"
Lisa's face went still.
May you like
"What papers?" she said.
And the way she said it — the specific blankness of it — told me she was asking a real question.
