Initialize _events property

[tfehlmann]

The _events property is currently uninitialized which results in a runtime error in the _consume_patch function.

[philippjfr]

Thanks for tracking this down. Would be nice if we had some integration tests here.

[philippjfr]

(To be clear I'm not asking you to add those)

[bryevdv]

@philippjfr do you want to merge this as-is with a follow-up issue for more tests, or do you want to wait for someone to add tests to this branch?

[mattpap]

Logically makes sense. Regression tests would be good to have.

[mattpap]

@tfehlmann, thanks.