Then Daniel said,
“What Walter wanted her to have.”
Patricia made a small sound.
“Walter?”
I finally spoke.
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“Walter did this?”
“Yes.”
Then, after eight years of swallowing everything, I said the one thing I needed her to hear.
“Walter did this because he cared about me. He watched the way you treated me. He watched Grant allow it. And he decided the person who had shown kindness inside this house would eventually be the person who kept it.”
My voice never shook.
“You spent eight years telling me I didn’t belong here.”
I looked toward the front door.
“It turns out I’m the one who does.”
I could have told her about Walter’s letter.
I could have read every sentence aloud.
But I didn’t.
That letter belonged to me.
I wasn’t going to use the words of a kind man as a weapon.
