“No.”
She said it softly at first.
Then louder.
“No.
That’s impossible.”
I watched her search the paper as though another name might appear if she looked hard enough.
“Your father wouldn’t do that,” she said to me.
“He didn’t do it behind your back,” I replied.
“You just refused to be involved whenever he talked about finances.”
“That house was our marriage.”
“No, Mom.
It was a property with bills and legal records.
Dad knew that even when you didn’t want to.”
Kendra looked furious now, but not at Mom yet.
“You knew this?” she demanded.
“Yes.”
“And you let us bring an entire moving truck here?”
I looked at my bookshelf lying near the sidewalk.
“My things were still inside when you arrived.”
“You could have said something!”
“I did.
Last night I said okay.”
“That isn’t saying something.”
“No,” I said.
“It was giving you a chance to decide how far you were willing to go without checking whether you had the right.”
Mark rubbed a hand across his mouth.
Unlike Kendra and Mom, he had gone quiet.
I could almost see him replaying the morning: entering without permission, moving my possessions, unloading his furniture, smiling while neighbors watched.
He turned toward Kendra.
“You told me your mother owned the place.”
“She does.”
Daniel answered before I could.
“The record in my hand says otherwise.”
Kendra pointed at me.
“Then she tricked Mom.”
There it was.
The next defense.
When certainty failed, accusation took its place.
“She took advantage of Dad when he was sick.”
My chest tightened.
I had expected anger.
I had expected denial.
That still landed hard.
Daniel looked at me, but I shook my head slightly.
I wanted to answer this one.
“Dad wasn’t incapable of making decisions when these documents were completed,” I said.
“And you know why I was involved in the first place.
I was paying to keep the house from falling apart while you visited twice a month and criticized the paint.”
Kendra opened her mouth.
I kept going.
“When the furnace failed, who paid for it?”
She said nothing.
“When the insurance premium increased, who handled it?”
Silence.
“When Dad stopped working, who covered the mortgage?”
Mom looked away.
