Chapter 4: The Morning After Christmas
I didn't sleep.
I lay in the dark with my hand throbbing, the burn wrapped in gauze Daniel had found in the bathroom cabinet, and I listened to the house settle around me.
My house.
The words still felt strange.
Like trying on a coat that fit perfectly but that I hadn't known I owned.
Daniel lay beside me, not sleeping either.
I could tell by his breathing.
At some point around two in the morning, he said, "I'm sorry."
"I know," I said.
"I mean for all of it.
Not just tonight."
I didn't answer that.
Not because I didn't have anything to say.
Because I had too much, and none of it was ready to come out cleanly.
He didn't push.
That was something, at least.
In the morning, Patricia called.
I was in the kitchen making coffee when Daniel's phone lit up on the counter.
He was in the shower.
I looked at the screen — Mom — and I let it ring.
She called three more times before he came downstairs.
He saw the missed calls and looked at me.
"She's going to want to talk," he said.
"I know."
"I don't have to answer."
"You should answer," I said.
"She's your mother.
But I want to be in the room."
He nodded.
He called her back and put the phone on speaker on the kitchen table between us.
She picked up on the first ring.
"I want to meet," she said.
No greeting.
"Today.
Just the three of us."
"Emily will be there," Daniel said.
A pause.
"I know that.
I said the three of us."
I wrapped both hands around my coffee cup.
The gauze on my right hand was already starting to yellow at the edges.
"Where?" Daniel said.
"Your father's house.
Eleven o'clock." Another pause.
"He won't be there.
He's — we're not speaking at the moment."
Daniel looked at me.
I gave a small nod.
"We'll be there," he said.
She hung up without saying goodbye.
We drove to the house in near silence.
It was the house Daniel had grown up in — a large colonial on a quiet street, the kind of house that looked warm from the outside.
I had spent years trying to feel welcome in it.
I never quite managed.
Patricia opened the door before we knocked.
She was dressed carefully, hair done, lipstick on.
She had prepared for this.
That told me something.
She stepped back to let us in and led us to the sitting room without offering coffee or taking our coats.
We sat across from her with our jackets still on.
"I want to apologize," she said.
The words landed flat.
Not because she hadn't said them, but because of the way she said them — looking just past my shoulder, like the apology was addressed to the wall behind me.
"For which part?" I asked.
Her eyes moved to my face.
"For last night getting out of hand."
"Getting out of hand," I repeated.
"Emotions were running high—"
"You sl@pped me," I said.
"I fell.
I burned my hand on the soup.
Your family laughed.
And your son told me you were teaching me how to be a better wife."
She held my gaze for exactly three seconds.
Then she looked at Daniel.
"I'd like to speak to you privately."
"No," Daniel said.
She blinked.
"Excuse me?"
"Whatever you want to say, you can say in front of Emily." He leaned forward slightly.
"That's how it's going to work from now on."
Patricia set her hands in her lap.
She looked down at them for a moment, and I thought — genuinely thought — that she might be about to say something real.
Something honest.
Something that might have cracked the wall between us even slightly.
Instead she looked up and said, "I want the deed reversed."
Daniel went very still.
"Your father had no right to put that property in her name without a family discussion.
I want it reversed, I want it put into a joint family trust, and I want a formal agreement about how that house is managed going forward."
"That house," I said, "is my home."
"It was purchased with family money—"
"Your husband's money," I said.
"Which he chose to use this way.
Legally.
Three years ago."
"He was manipulated—"
"By whom?" I asked.
"I didn't know about it.
He told you that himself."
Her jaw tightened.
"There are ways to influence a person without them realizing it.
A certain kind of woman knows exactly how to—"
"Patricia." Daniel's voice was quiet and hard.
"Stop."
She stopped.
But her eyes stayed on me, and what was in them was not fear anymore.
It was calculation.
"There are other ways to handle this," she said.
"Legal ways.
Your father is not the only one who knows lawyers."
The room went cold.
She smiled — small, controlled, certain.
"I'd like you both to think very carefully before you decide how you want to proceed."
It wasn't a suggestion.
It was the opening move of something larger.
May you like
And I understood, sitting in that carefully arranged room with my burned hand in my lap, that last night had not been the crisis.
Last night had only been the beginning.
