PART 2
The lawyer paused.
The room was completely silent.
Patrice stared at him, her arms now resting loosely at her sides.
The other relatives leaned forward.
I couldn’t move.
Mr. Abernathy looked down at the document again.
Then he continued reading.
“To the young woman my daughter paid to pretend to be my granddaughter—yes, Patrice, I knew.
I knew by her second Sunday.
I am blind, not deaf.
I could hear the hesitation in her voice every time she called me Grandpa.
I could hear the guilt in her breathing when she thought she was deceiving me.
But I also heard something else.
She came every Sunday.
Not because she wanted my money.
Not because she wanted my house.
She came because she knew what it meant to be alone.”
My eyes immediately filled with tears.
Patrice looked down.
The lawyer continued.
“So I allowed the arrangement to continue.
And somewhere along the way, she stopped pretending.
She became the granddaughter I wished I had.”
A woman sitting behind Patrice began quietly crying.
I pressed my hands together beneath the table.
I hadn’t expected this.
Not even remotely.
But Mr. Abernathy wasn’t finished.
He turned the page.
“There is one more thing I want everyone in this room to understand.
My daughter believes she hired this young woman to give me companionship.
She is wrong.
I was the one giving her something.”
Patrice suddenly looked up.
“What does that mean?”
The lawyer didn’t answer.
He simply continued.
“I learned about her family.
I learned about the medical bills.
I learned about the sacrifices her mother had made.
I learned that this young woman was working herself into the ground while trying to finish college.
And I learned that she never once asked me for anything.”
My breath caught.
How
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