The house had nearly been lost once through desperate choices. Tonight, they were preparing to trust another promise they had not examined.
Patricia moved closer to her husband. “You knew about the option?”
Richard kept his eyes on the lease. “I forgot.”
“How do you forget something like that?”
“At the time, all I cared about was that we could stay.”
Her expression changed. Whatever they had said to the country club, the fear beneath it belonged to both of them.
The deputy asked Richard for a brief account of the evening. My father answered in clipped sentences, omitting my mother’s words.
Patricia interrupted him.
“I said the boy was a mistake.”
He turned to her. “Patricia.”
“I said it.”
For the first time since David arrived, she looked straight at the camera.
The lens was too high for her to see me through it. Still, I felt exposed.
“I wanted Nicole to hear it,” she told the deputy. “I was angry, and I wanted to hurt her.”
Natalie whispered, “Mom.”
Patricia shook her head. “Let me finish.”
She pressed her fingers together, searching for words she had avoided for years.
“When Richard lost the house, he told me he would fix it. Then this company appeared. I was ashamed of needing a stranger’s help. Every time Nicole came over, she looked as if she could manage everything I couldn’t.”
I thought of all the afternoons I had spent fixing their bills and answering their calls.
“You could have asked me,” I whispered to the screen.
Patricia could not hear me.
“So I made her feel small,” she said. “I knew what her work was doing for her. I just didn’t want to admit she was doing better than we were.”
Her face tightened.
“None of that excuses what I called Leo.”
No one spoke.
It was an admission, not an apology. I needed more than an admission.
In the hotel room, Leo stirred.
