Chapter 26 - WHAT PATRICIA ASKEDTwo years and nine months after the hospital, Patricia asked for a mediated conversation with me.
Not Lily.
Me.
I agreed.
Daniel attended only because I wanted him there.
Patricia sat across from us.
She said:
“I want to ask one question.”
I waited.
“Will you ever trust me?”
I thought about giving a comforting answer.
Didn’t.
“I don’t know.”
She nodded.
“What would it take?”
“Time.”
“I’ve given time.”
“That isn’t how it works.”
She looked down.
I continued.
“You’re thinking of time as payment.”
Her face tightened.
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
“Then what else?”
“Accepting that trying does not guarantee the thing you want.”
Silence.
Daniel stared at the floor.
Patricia said:
“I want to be her grandmother.”
“You are her grandmother.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
She wanted the role.
Access.
Holidays.
Photos.
Sleepovers someday.
Authority.
I said:
“You may have a relationship with Lily. You may never have the relationship you imagined.”
Patricia cried.
Quietly.
Then:
“I hate that.”
“I know.”
“I also understand.”
That was more important.
Before we left, she said:
“Emily?”
I turned.
“I still think about the second after she fell.”
So did I.
“What do you remember?”
Patricia closed her eyes.
“The sound.”
My throat tightened.
“Me too.”
“I wanted it to be an accident so badly that for a while I convinced myself it was.”
I said:
“The fall was an accident.”
She looked up.
“The slap wasn’t.”
“No.”
There.
Precision.
The slap was intentional.
The fall was not.
The lie afterward was intentional.
The injury was not desired.
May you like
Adults could be responsible for outcomes they never wanted.
That was the truth big enough to hold all of it.
