Chapter 7 - My Mother's Version
Patricia found me outside the ballroom beside a display of service portraits.
She'd taken off her diamonds.
It was the first time I'd seen her without them since Dad's funeral.
"Derek says the police might charge him."
"That's their decision."
"You're going to let strangers destroy your family?"
I pointed at the portrait behind her.
Dad, twenty years younger, in desert camouflage, a tired grin beneath his cap.
"I didn't destroy this family. I spent twenty-five years trying to stay in it."
"We didn't ask for your money."
"Dad's nurses didn't get paid with your gratitude."
Her mouth tightened.
"Frank exaggerated his illness near the end."
I stared at her.
"He needed oxygen to walk to the bathroom."
"You weren't there."
"Because you changed the locks."
She looked away.
"Derek was trying to build something. Your father agreed to help."
"By signing a deed from an ICU bed?"
She took a step back.
And for the first time she seemed afraid of a question instead of offended by it.
"Ask your sister," she said.
Olivia.
The middle child, who'd kept her head down through every family fight.
She'd attended Dad's funeral but never answered my follow-up calls.
"Why Olivia?"
Mom refused to explain.
Instead she made one last attempt to hurt me.
"All those medals, Caroline, and you still need us to tell you that you matter."
It was such a practiced cruelty that I almost smiled.
"No," I said. "I needed you to stop telling me I didn't."
My phone lit up with Olivia's name.
She had sent a photograph taken outside the hospital on November 17.
May you like
It showed Derek arriving with a notary.
And Patricia carrying Dad's signature stamp.
