Chapter 3: What Frank Wrote When He Knew He Was Running Out of Time
Mr.
Delgado held up one finger — wait — and turned slightly away from me, his voice dropping low into the phone.
I sat with the box in my lap and the letter in my hands.
The paper was cream-colored, heavier than regular stationery.
Frank's handwriting was slower than I remembered, more deliberate, the way it got in his last year when his hands tired easily.
*Patricia,*
*If you are reading this, then I didn't get the chance to tell you in person what I should have told you years ago.
I'm sorry for that.
I'm sorry for a lot of things I let go on too long.*
*The woman in the photograph is named Dolores Vega.
She was my bookkeeper for nine years, from before I met you until three years into our marriage.
She is the only other person who knows what Brad did.*
I stopped reading.
Mr.
Delgado was still on the phone.
His back was to me.
I looked at the photograph again.
Dolores Vega.
She was smiling at the camera, one hand raised slightly as if she'd been caught mid-sentence.
Frank stood beside her, not smiling, but relaxed in a way that told me they knew each other well.
I kept reading.
*Brad borrowed money from my business account starting in 2016.
Not once.
Not twice.
Eleven separate transfers over fourteen months, totaling just over $340,000.
He told Dolores it was authorized.
She had no reason to doubt him at first.
When she realized what was happening, she came to me directly.*
My hands had gone completely still.
*I confronted Brad.
He denied it, then admitted it, then told me it was a loan he intended to repay.
I gave him the chance to do that quietly.
I did not want to involve the courts.
I did not want to destroy what was left of the family.
That was my mistake, Patricia.
I protected him when I should have protected you.*
*He never repaid a single dollar.*
*He knew I was ill before you did.
He came to me six months before my diagnosis was confirmed and asked about the will.
When I told him I intended to leave the house and the majority of the estate to you, he told me — and I want you to understand he said this calmly, without raising his voice — that if I did that, he would make your life very difficult after I was gone.*
I set the letter down on my knee.
Outside Mr.
Delgado's window, a truck was backing up somewhere below, its warning signal beeping in slow, even pulses.
*The USB drive contains Dolores's records.
Every transfer.
Every date.
Every amount.
She kept copies of everything and gave them to me when she resigned.
She said she wanted you to have them if anything ever happened to me.*
*I updated my will fourteen months ago.
The house is yours.
The land is yours.
A portion of the liquid assets has been placed in a separate trust that Brad and Stephanie cannot contest, because it was structured as a gift during my lifetime, not a bequest.
Mr.
Delgado will explain the details.*
*I should have told you all of this while I was still here.
I should have let you stand beside me when I faced him.
Instead I tried to carry it alone, and I ran out of time.*
*You were never just here for the house, Patricia.
You were here because you loved me when I was difficult and sick and not always easy to love.
I knew that.
I always knew that.*
*I love you.
I'm sorry it took me this long to fight for you properly.*
*— Frank*
I folded the letter along its original crease.
Mr.
Delgado ended the call and turned back around.
He looked at my face and said nothing for a moment.
"He told Brad the will hadn't been changed," I said.
"Yes."
"He let Brad believe he was getting the house."
"Frank felt it was the safest way to keep things calm while the trust was being finalized.
He didn't want Brad to have time to take legal action before everything was properly structured."
I set the letter back in the box beside the USB drive and the photograph of Dolores Vega.
"Brad just called to tell you he's contesting the will," I said.
"He did."
"What did you tell him?"
Mr.
Delgado sat down.
"I told him the reading is scheduled for Thursday and that he's welcome to have his attorney present."
I looked at the box.
"Does he know about the trust?"
"Not yet."
Thursday was four days away.
I picked up the box and held it in both hands, feeling the weight of it — the letter, the drive, the photograph, everything Frank had spent his last months quietly building while I sat beside him not knowing any of it.
"Mr.
Delgado," I said.
May you like
"I need the name of a good attorney."
He was already writing it down.
