Chapter 6 - The Price of Being Family
I did not let Margaret inside.
Rosa’s home had become the first place my children could sleep without listening for footsteps.
Margaret did not get to bring uncertainty through that door.
“We can speak on the porch,” I said.
She glanced past me.
“Are the children here?”
“They’re with Rosa.”
“I want to see them.”
“Today we’re talking about why you came.”
Her mouth tightened.
For fourteen years, I had softened every boundary with an apology.
She seemed offended to discover the boundary could stand by itself.
Margaret held out the watch box.
“I thought you might want this.”
I accepted it.
Inside lay Andrew’s watch, the hospital bracelet from Benjamin’s birth, and a folded photograph of our first four children.
For a moment, I could not speak.
Margaret saw it.
Her voice gentled.
“We’ve all suffered, Cynthia.”
“Yes.”
“Patrick is frightened.”
“So were my children.”
“He wasn’t himself.”
“He knew where the door was. He knew where the rain was. He chose which side each of us stood on.”
She looked away.
Across the street, a dog barked behind a fence.
Somewhere inside, Lucy laughed at something Rosa said.
The sound seemed to unsettle Margaret more than my anger had.
She reached into her purse and withdrew a document.
“Patrick had this prepared. Everyone can move forward.”
I did not take it.
“What is it?”
“An agreement. He’ll let you return to the west wing. The children can keep their rooms.”
“And?”
Her eyes flickered.
“You would stop these accusations.”
“About the deed?”
“There were financial pressures you don’t understand.”
“I understand that someone forged my name.”
“Patrick built a life around that house.”
“So did I.”
She thrust the papers toward me.
“You have your career. Your salary. Your pension eventually. What does he have?”
I thought of Evelyn’s trust.
The money that had cleared his debts.
The years of free occupancy.
The dinners where I paid the caterer and listened to him call me fortunate.
“He had a son,” I said. “He had six grandchildren. He had more than enough.”
Margaret’s expression broke.
For a heartbeat, I saw the grieving mother beneath the practiced disapproval.
Then she said something that made the air leave my lungs.
“Andrew should never have gone through his father’s desk.”
I stared at her.
“You knew.”
She closed her eyes.
“How much?”
“Cynthia—”
“How much did you know?”
She pressed the papers against her chest.
“I knew Patrick needed the property secured. I didn’t know every detail.”
“But you knew I hadn’t agreed.”
Silence.
There it was.
Not confusion.
Not a mistake.
A choice.
Margaret lowered her voice.
“The house was supposed to pass through the family. Evelyn had no right to favor you.”
“She sold it to me after Patrick’s creditors came.”
“With money she gave you.”
“Yes.”
“She barely knew you.”
I looked at the woman who had watched me raise her grandchildren for fourteen years.
“Evelyn knew who sat beside her after surgery.”
Margaret’s face reddened.
“She knew who remembered her birthday,” I continued. “She knew who asked what she wanted instead of discussing her like furniture.”
“You think that makes you better than us?”
“No. I think it explains why she trusted me.”
Margaret’s phone vibrated.
She ignored it.
Then it vibrated again.
She looked down.
Whatever she read drained the color from her face.
“What happened?” I asked.
She tucked the phone away too quickly.
“Nothing.”
“Then you should go.”
She stared at me as though waiting for the old Cynthia to appear.
The woman who would ask whether she had eaten.
Who would apologize for the uncomfortable conversation.
Who would carry everyone else’s distress before acknowledging her own.
I opened Rosa’s door.
Margaret spoke behind me.
“Patrick says you have until tonight to stop.”
I turned.
“Tell Patrick to speak to Dana.”
“If you keep pushing, there may be nothing left.”
I looked at the watch box in my hand.
“He already tried to leave us with nothing.”
After she left, I wrote down every word I could remember and sent the proposed agreement to Dana.
An hour later, Gerald called.
Patrick’s financial officer had been questioned.
The lender had referred the suspected fraud to investigators.
Margaret had not come to reconcile.
She had come because the walls were closing in.
That night, Benjamin found me putting Andrew’s watch into a drawer.
“Did Grandma say sorry?”
“No.”
“Do you think she ever will?”
I thought about giving him a comforting answer.
Instead, I gave him one he could build on.
“I don’t know.”
He nodded.
May you like
Then he leaned against me.
For once, he did not try to protect me from how much he needed his mother.
