“It’s over, Thomas.”
He sneered.
“What are you going to do? Call the police? You won’t. You’ve always been too weak to punish me.”
The worst part was that he understood the woman I had been remarkably well. I had spent decades terrified that holding Thomas accountable would somehow make me a bad mother, and he had learned to use that fear against me.
“You’re right. I have been weak. But that woman died today, in this kitchen.”
Thomas shouted after me as I walked toward the door.
“You’ll never do anything! You need me! You have no one else!”
I didn’t answer. I returned to my car, wiped away the few angry tears that escaped, and called Stanley, the attorney who had handled Richard’s will years earlier.
“Stanley, it’s Dorothy Peterson. I need to hire you. And I need the best private investigator you know.”
Thomas believed I had walked away because I couldn’t handle the truth. He assumed that once the shock faded, the mother who had forgiven him throughout his life would eventually return and protect him again.
