> I know you have been told that this property will remain in the family. Your mother has said it because she loves you, and because she wants to give you something permanent. I have said it because I wanted to avoid disappointing you. Neither of us has been entirely honest.
Patrick stopped reading.
Megan stood behind him, one hand resting on the edge of the desk.
“What?” she asked.
He handed her the page.
She read the paragraph, then looked at him.
“Your father knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That you thought the house was yours.”
Patrick took the letter back.
He had been twenty-nine when it was written. At the time, he and Megan had been renting a small townhouse across town. Their first child had not yet been born, and Patrick had been working for a construction company that was beginning to lose contracts.
He remembered visiting George at the lake house one evening in October. They had stood on the back porch while the leaves moved across the water.
George had said, “You’ll have this place one day.”
Or perhaps he had said, “You’ll have a place like this one day.”
Patrick had repeated the first version so often that he could no longer hear the difference.
He read on.
> Son, I want you to understand what I mean when I say the house is not your inheritance. It belongs to your mother. She and I bought it together, paid for it together, and built our life in it together. After I am gone, it will be hers to keep, sell, rent, or give away. That is not a rejection of you. It is respect for her life.
Patrick’s throat tightened.
George had known he was ill then.
The doctors had called it manageable. A condition that required monitoring, medication, and fewer long days at work. Everyone had believed there would be time.
There had been time.
Just not as much as they wanted.
> You may be angry when you read this. You may think I am taking something from you. I am not. I am asking you not to make your mother prove her love by surrendering her choices.
Megan sat down on a cardboard box.
Patrick kept reading.
