Mr.
Alden pressed play, and my mother’s weak voice filled the office.
‘Yvonne, you should know I recorded what you asked me to sign.’
There was a rustle on the recording, followed by the scrape of a chair.
Then Yvonne’s voice came through, softer than I had ever heard it in life.
‘Helena, you’re tired.
It’s only an authorization form.
Stefan needs certainty while you’re in treatment.’
My mother answered after a long pause.
‘It says deed.’
No one in the attorney’s office moved.
Stefan stared at the recorder as if it had opened a hole in the table.
On the recording, Yvonne gave a nervous little laugh.
‘You’re misunderstanding the wording.’
‘Then explain it in front of Stefan,’ Mom said.
‘And my daughter.
And Mr.
Alden.’
The recording clicked off.
Yvonne found her voice first.
‘That proves nothing.’
Mr.
Alden folded his hands.
‘It proves Helena understood that you were attempting to place a real-estate document in front of her while describing it as something else.’
‘She was medicated.
She was confused.’
‘She was sufficiently alert to call me eleven minutes later.’
Stefan turned slowly toward his wife.
‘You told me Mom signed the house over to us.’
Yvonne’s gaze flicked toward me before returning to him.
‘She intended to.’
‘That isn’t what you told me.’
‘Stefan—’
‘You showed me a deed.’
The word seemed to change the air in the room.
Mr.
Alden leaned back.
‘What deed?’
Stefan’s face had gone gray.
‘A transfer deed.
Yvonne said Mom signed it three weeks before she died.
She showed me a copy with a stamp on it.’
Yvonne gripped the strap of her handbag.
‘This is private family business.’
‘It became my business when Helena brought me the unsigned document you left in her bedroom,’ Mr.
Alden said.
‘It also became my business when a title search confirmed that no transfer had been recorded.’
I looked at Stefan.
‘You believed her?’
His eyes met mine for half a second, then dropped.
‘I wanted to.’
That answer hurt almost more than Yvonne’s cruelty.
He had ignored my call because believing his wife was easier than asking his grieving sister one difficult question.
Yvonne straightened her shoulders.
‘Helena promised Stefan the house years ago.’
‘No,’ I said.
