Pat,
“If you’re reading this, then I ran out of time to explain everything myself.”
“You’re probably angry already.”
“Good. It means you’re paying attention.”
I laughed once despite myself.
Then I kept reading.
“First, I need you to understand something.”
“Brad and Stephanie are wrong about you.”
“But I let them be wrong for too long.”
“That part is mine.”
My eyes burned.
For 11 years, Frank’s children had treated me like a trespasser.
Stephanie once asked whether I had chosen my wedding dress to match “the curtains I’d eventually inherit.”
Brad told one of Frank’s cousins that women like me had “retirement plans with wedding rings.”
Frank corrected them sometimes.
Usually gently.
“That’s enough.”
“Don’t speak to Patricia that way.”
But he never forced the issue.
He hated conflict.
