Chapter 4: The Woman Who Had Been Here Before
I met Patricia Holt the next morning at a coffee shop twenty minutes from my house.
Far enough that I wouldn't run into anyone I knew.
Close enough that I could get back to the kids before school drop-off ended.
She was already there when I arrived.
Sixties, silver hair pulled back neatly, a cup of tea she hadn't touched.
She watched me walk in the way someone watches a person they've been worried about.
"Thank you for coming," she said.
I sat down.
"Who are you?"
"I was engaged to Gerald Mercer," she said.
"Andrew's father.
Thirty years ago."
I put my coffee down.
"He ended it," she continued.
"But not before his family had done everything they could to make sure I had nothing left when I walked away.
My job.
My apartment.
A legal situation that took me four years and everything I had to resolve." She paused.
"It wasn't real.
The charges.
But it didn't matter.
By the time it was over, I was starting from zero."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you have five children," she said.
"And because I heard what happened last night."
I went still.
"How?"
"Andrew has a cousin.
Thomas.
He's been trying to get out from under that family for two years.
He called me last night after Andrew came home." She wrapped both hands around her cup.
"Alice, Gerald and his wife Marion are already talking to their lawyer.
They're going to try to build a case that you're an unfit mother.
They want to use the guardianship question against you — make it look like you were already considering giving up your children.
They'll twist Andrew's request into something that came from you."
The room felt very quiet.
"They can't do that," I said.
"He asked me.
I have notes.
I have the exact words he used."
"Notes on your phone," Patricia said.
"Their lawyer will call it self-serving.
They'll say you fabricated it after the fact." She leaned forward slightly.
"Do you have anything else?
Any message, any email, anything in writing from Andrew or his parents?"
I thought about it.
"Andrew texted me the morning after we met his parents.
He said his mother wanted to discuss the living arrangements for the children.
I didn't understand what he meant at the time."
Patricia nodded slowly.
"That's something.
Keep it.
Screenshot it and send it somewhere safe — not just your phone."
"Why are you helping me?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"Because nobody helped me," she said.
"And because I've spent thirty years wondering what would have happened if someone had just told me the truth before it was too late."
I looked at her across the table.
A stranger who had driven to meet me at eight in the morning because she recognized a pattern she had lived through herself.
"What do they do next?" I asked.
"If they're already talking to a lawyer — what's the move?"
"They'll approach you," Patricia said.
"Not with threats this time.
With money.
Gerald always offers money first.
A settlement.
A clean break.
They'll make it sound generous.
They'll make it sound like the sensible choice."
"And if I say no?"
She picked up her tea.
Set it back down.
"Then they make things very difficult for a very long time." She met my eyes.
"But Alice — they've never faced someone who had documentation before they made their first move.
You're already ahead of where I was."
I drove home with both hands on the wheel and the heat on even though it wasn't cold.
That afternoon, a car I didn't recognize parked across the street from my house.
It sat there for forty minutes.
When I looked out the window a second time, it was gone.
Two days later, Andrew called.
"I think we should talk," he said.
His voice was calm.
Reasonable.
The voice of the man I thought I'd fallen in love with.
"My parents want to meet with you.
Just a conversation.
They want to make things right."
I said nothing.
"Alice.
They're prepared to be very generous."
There it was.
May you like
"I'll think about it," I said.
I hung up and called Patricia.
