Chapter 8: What Patricia Knew
I showed the message to Diane without saying a word.
She read it.
Her jaw tightened.
"Don't answer it tonight," she said.
"I wasn't going to."
But I didn't sleep again.
I lay in the dark and I thought about the name Patricia Marsh and the nine years of payments and the account that had been closed in 2003, and I thought about all the things a name and a closed account could mean, and I thought about the fact that she had my number and had chosen tonight to use it.
By morning I had made a decision.
I called her back.
She answered on the second ring, as if she'd been waiting.
"Mrs.
Calloway." Her voice was older than I'd expected.
Careful.
Not nervous the way Rose had been nervous — something more controlled than that.
"You have my number," I said.
"I'd like to know how."
"Thomas gave it to me.
Years ago.
He said if anything ever happened to him and I felt it was necessary, I could use it." A pause.
"I debated for a long time whether this was necessary."
"And you decided it was."
"I decided you deserved the chance to hear my side before you heard someone else's version of it." Her voice was very even.
"I know about Rose.
Thomas told me about Eleanor.
I want to be clear about what I was and what I wasn't."
"Then be clear."
"I was not a romantic involvement.
I know what the account looks like.
I know what you must have assumed." A breath.
"I was Thomas's half-sister."
The kitchen went very still.
"He had a sister," I said.
"Half-sister.
Same father, different mothers.
Our father was not a good man.
Thomas left that part of his life behind when he was young — he told almost no one about it.
When I found him in 1994, he'd spent twenty years pretending that side of his family didn't exist." A pause.
"He wasn't unkind about it.
He just — he'd built a life, and I was a reminder of something he'd worked hard to leave behind."
"The account."
"He helped me get on my feet.
I was in a bad situation.
He paid for a flat, some living costs, for about three years.
After that I didn't need it anymore.
I asked him to close the account and he did." Her voice was steady, but there was something careful underneath it.
"I didn't want his money.
I just needed — I needed a way out of something, and he was the only family I had."
"Why didn't he tell me?"
"Because telling you about me meant telling you about his father.
And telling you about his father meant opening a door he'd spent his whole adult life keeping shut." A long pause.
"He was ashamed.
Not of me.
Of where he came from.
Of the things his father did.
He thought if you knew, you'd look at him differently."
I pressed my hand flat against the kitchen table.
"He thought I would love him less," I said.
"Yes."
"He was wrong."
"I know that.
I think he knew it too, toward the end.
But by then the habit of silence was so old he didn't know how to break it."
I was quiet for a moment.
Through the window, the garden was grey in the early morning light.
The roses were just shapes in the half-dark.
"I'm not angry at you," I said.
"I want you to know that."
A small exhale.
"Thank you."
"I'm angry at him.
For making all of you carry pieces of his life separately, in the dark, without ever letting any of you know the others existed." My voice stayed steady.
I was surprised by that.
"You, Eleanor, Rose, Diane.
All of you holding different corners of the same secret."
"He loved you very much," Patricia said.
"I know that's not enough.
But I watched him for years, from a distance, and the one thing I was always certain of was that."
"It's not enough," I said.
"And it's also true.
Both things."
After I hung up, I sat at the table for a long time.
Then I picked up my phone and I called Rose.
"I need to tell you something before Saturday," I said when she answered.
"There are some things I've learned in the last two days that I think you should know before you come.
Not to frighten you.
Just so you don't walk in here without the full picture."
"Okay," Rose said.
Her voice was very quiet.
"Your father had a half-sister.
Her name is Patricia.
She's still alive." I paused.
"You have more family than you knew."
The silence on the other end lasted a long time.
When Rose finally spoke, her voice had changed.
Something in it had come loose.
"I've been alone my whole life," she said.
"My mother was an only child.
My father was a name I didn't know.
I thought — I thought I was coming to meet you just to understand where I came from.
I didn't think there would be—" She stopped.
"I know," I said.
"I'm sorry.
I don't mean to—"
"Rose." I kept my voice gentle.
"It's all right to feel this."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "Ruth.
Can I ask you something?"
"Yes."
"Are you going to be okay?"
I looked around the kitchen.
The empty chair.
The cold kettle.
The photograph of Thomas on the shelf by the door, the one I'd always loved, the one where he was laughing at something just out of frame.
"I think so," I said.
"I think I'm going to be something.
I'm not sure okay is exactly the right word yet."
Rose made a sound that was almost a laugh.
"Saturday," she said.
"Saturday," I said.
May you like
I hung up and sat with the quiet for a while.
Then I got up, filled the kettle, and made breakfast for one.
