“I can be there tonight.”
Judith understood immediately why I did not want another shouting match. I could argue with Gabriel for hours and he would reduce the argument to tone, anger, or a single bad decision. I needed something harder to reshape. I needed facts. Patricia was perfect because she had been sitting across the closing table when both of us signed the documents. She did not need my interpretation of our marriage to explain ownership. She only needed the deed.
I also had years of financial records because I had always been the person who kept our household paperwork organized. For once, the invisible administrative work Gabriel barely noticed was going to make itself visible.
That afternoon, I stayed with Mom. She was having what we now called a reasonable day. She sat by the window watching me work in the garden. Later, while I prepared dinner, she sat at the kitchen counter.
