Petra’s face tightened.
“I knew you had a mother. I did not know I would spend every holiday competing with a dead man.”
The words struck the room harder than the recording.
I thought of Harold’s chair by the window, the indentation still visible in the cushion. I thought of the way he used to polish the silver candlesticks until they reflected the flames.
Dex stood.
“Do not speak about Dad like that.”
“Why? Because everyone has to pretend this house is a shrine?”
“No. Because he was my father, and she is my mother.”
Petra looked at him with disbelief.
“You are choosing this?”
“No,” Dex said. “You made me choose when you lied.”
Martin placed both hands flat on the table.
“Petra, you will leave.”
She turned to him.
“You’re taking her side?”
“I am taking the side of the truth.”
“You have no idea what I have done for this family.”
“I know what you have done tonight.”
“And what has she done?” Petra demanded, pointing at me. “She has kept Dex tied to this house. She uses the children to make us come here. She makes every gathering about Harold. She acts helpless when she wants attention.”
I let her finish.
Then I said, “You are right about one thing.”
Petra blinked.
“I have made this house the center of my life,” I continued. “After Harold died, I was afraid that if I changed anything, I would lose the last proof that our life had been real. So I held on too tightly. I asked everyone to come here because I did not know how to bear an empty table.”
Dex’s expression softened, but I kept looking at Petra.
“That does not give you the right to invent my incapacity. It does not give you the right to arrange my removal. And it does not make my home yours.”
Petra’s lower lip trembled.
For a second, she looked less like an intruder and more like a woman who had finally reached the edge of a story she had been telling herself.
Then she saw the signed documents on the table.
“What are those?”
“Copies of the new estate plan,” Josephine said.
