Chapter 3 - My Mother Signed The Deed After I Walked Out
Daniel left through the front door.
He did not ask permission.
Margaret watched him go and then turned her anger toward the nearest person still available.
Me.
“You're enjoying this.”
I stared at her.
“Which part?”
“Walking in here and watching everything fall apart.”
“You knocked dinner onto me.”
“You arrived ready to take the house.”
“I didn't know I owned it.”
She laughed.
“Please.”
Mr. Hayes gathered the papers.
“Margaret.”
“No, Arthur.”
She stood.
“I lived in this house before Rebecca ever knew its address.”
“Then you should understand that living somewhere and owning it are different things.”
Margaret looked like she'd been slapped again.
I almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
I asked Mr. Hayes:
“When did Mom sign the deed?”
“Two years ago.”
“Month.”
He looked at me.
“September.”
My stomach tightened.
“What date?”
“Fourteenth.”
I laughed softly.
Of course.
September 14 was the day after my last real fight with my mother.
Rebecca had called me from this dining room.
Daniel and Margaret had been arguing downstairs about roof repairs.
Mom wanted me to mediate.
Again.
I was twenty-five, living nine hundred miles away, and somehow still the person responsible for getting three adults through dinner.
I had said:
“Sell the house.”
Silence on the line.
Then my mother:
“What?”
“Sell it.”
“Emma.”
“This place is making all of you insane.”
“It was your father's.”
“He’s dead.”
I had regretted that sentence the second I said it.
Mom had gone quiet.
Then:
“Some things are bigger than your impatience.”
I snapped.
“If this house matters more than people, keep it. I won't come back and fight over it.”
Then I hung up.
She signed a deed to me the next day.
I looked at Mr. Hayes.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
He hesitated.
“Rebecca was my client.”
“She’s dead.”
“That doesn't make every private conversation yours.”
Margaret gave a bitter laugh.
“Now you discover boundaries.”
Mr. Hayes ignored her.
I asked:
“Was she angry?”
“Yes.”
Good.
No saintly deathbed mother.
“Did she do this to punish Daniel?”
“No.”
“Me?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
He looked toward the staircase.
“I will answer that when I can answer it without simplifying her.”
I almost laughed.
“Everybody in this family suddenly hates simple stories.”
Margaret said:
“You didn't seem to when you left.”
That one found me.
I took a breath.
“Did you care for her?”
Margaret’s face changed.
“What kind of question is that?”
“A real one.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Every day.”
“And Daniel?”
“He handled the property. Appointments sometimes.”
“And me?”
She stared.
“Two visits in the final six months.”
True.
The first had ended with Mom asking whether I planned to apologize to Daniel for telling him the house was ruining his life.
The second ended with me accusing her of letting Margaret speak for everybody.
I had not returned again.
I told myself I was refusing the role they kept handing me.
From Chicago, the difference between a boundary and an exit had looked cleaner.
Margaret said:
“You think a deed makes you the daughter who stayed.”
“I don't.”
“Rebecca did.”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“You weren't here when she couldn't climb the stairs.”
“No.”
“When she woke up at two in the morning.”
“No.”
“When she started forgetting which pill she'd taken.”
“Stop.”
“Why?”
“Because Mom being sick does not make you forging my death less insane.”
Margaret's face changed.
“I did not forge anything.”
“You signed something saying I was unreachable.”
“You were.”
“No.”
“You stopped answering.”
“I was alive.”
She looked away.
Mr. Hayes intervened.
“Emma, don't conflate the affidavit with the certificate. We don't yet know how one became attached to the other.”
That irritated me because it was correct.
I walked toward the foyer.
Margaret said:
“Where are you going?”
“Hotel.”
“This is your house now.”
She made it sound obscene.
I stopped.
“I don't know what this is.”
Mr. Hayes followed me.
At the front door, I asked:
“Do I have to decide tonight?”
“About what?”
“The house.”
“No.”
“Margaret staying?”
“No immediate decision.”
“Daniel?”
“Same answer.”
Good.
I opened the door.
Cold December air hit my face.
Mr. Hayes said quietly:
“There is one thing you should know before you leave.”
I turned.
“The deed wasn't Rebecca's first attempt.”
“What?”
“She offered Daniel a way to take ownership before she named you.”
Margaret looked sharply toward us.
She hadn't known either.
“What way?”
Mr. Hayes adjusted his coat.
“She offered to sell it to him.”
I stared.
“For how much?”
“Less than market.”
“Why didn't he?”
Mr. Hayes looked toward the dark driveway Daniel had just used.
“Because he said he wasn't going to buy what his father had already promised him.”
Daniel had spent years telling me our mother stole his inheritance.
May you like
Apparently, she had once offered to hand him the keys legally.
He had refused because accepting the offer required admitting the house had never been his.
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