Chapter 5 - WHY PATRICIA HATED METhe explanation came later.
Not immediately.
Patricia first defended herself.
Then Charles.
Then Richard.
Then nobody.
Finally, after nearly an hour, she looked at me and said:
“You remind me of him.”
“Richard?”
“No.”
“Charles?”
“Yes.”
That surprised me.
“In what way?”
“You walk into a room and know things.”
I waited.
“You make people feel stupid.”
“I try not to.”
“You do anyway.”
There it was.
Not class.
Not really.
Control.
Charles had run their marriage through expertise.
He handled money.
Lawyers.
Property.
Investments.
Patricia existed socially, beautifully, obediently.
Then when she discovered his fraud, she realized how little she knew about her own life.
Richard became the person who explained it.
Then lover.
Then accomplice in hiding money Charles himself had hidden first.
Patricia resented educated, financially powerful people.
But she also worshiped wealth.
Contradictory.
Human.
When Ethan brought me home—a woman from a working-class family who understood finance better than anyone in their circle—Patricia could not categorize me.
So she chose the category that preserved her superiority.
Poor girl.
Social climber.
Lucky rescue.
“She told herself I wanted your money,” I said.
Patricia looked away.
“Yes.”
“Because then I was predictable.”
“Yes.”
“If I actually had more financial power than the family, that made me dangerous.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
That did not excuse the slap.
Or wine.
Or year of insults.
But it explained why the truth at the wedding frightened her so deeply.
May you like
I wasn’t what she thought.
And her whole class hierarchy depended on believing she could identify worth from origin.
