Gentle in a family that seemed to value volume and status.
I loved Walter in a way I eventually realized I had never quite managed to love his son.
Walter was the only Monroe who treated me like a person.
At endless family gatherings, while Patricia dominated the living room, Walter and I would sit on the back porch together.
He told me stories about the property.
How he built the treehouse in the oak when Grant was small.
The winter the pipes froze.
How his own father had bought the house during the Depression for an amount that today wouldn’t cover a year of property taxes.
Walter noticed how Patricia treated me.
He noticed that Grant rarely defended me.
He never said much.
But I think it bothered him.
I think part of him was ashamed.
Walter died four years into my marriage.
A sudden heart attack while working among the roses he insisted on pruning himself.
Patricia’s grief was enormous.
Public.
She wore black for nearly a year and constantly referred to Walter as the great love of her life.
Within weeks of his funeral, however, she began taking control of everything he left behind.
Most importantly, the house.
She immediately started calling it “my home.”
As if Walter had never existed.
But Walter had been far more careful than Patricia realized.
And Walter had loved me.
I discovered the truth accidentally about a year before my divorce.
This was before I knew about Brooke.
Patricia had ordered me to help clear the remaining documents from Walter’s study.
It was the kind of unpleasant family task she routinely handed to me.
While sorting through the papers, I found a copy of Walter’s will.
Attached to it was another document.
I read it once.
Then again.
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