They found an attorney named Miriam Cole through Terrence’s employee assistance service. I did not choose her or pay her retainer. Terrence sold the watch he had bought with the house money and used the proceeds. That small action mattered to me more than his promises.
He asked me to attend the first meeting. Lennox surprised me by agreeing.
Miriam read the emails and asked questions without making faces. The transfer had gone to a company account associated with Marisa’s boutique. That was more useful than a personal payment with no description, she said, but it did not prove the terms Lennox believed she had accepted. She would request the records and preservation of communications. There was work to do before anyone talked about getting money back.
“What about our living situation?” Lennox asked.
“Keep it separate from the recovery,” Miriam said. “Don’t make a monthly budget that depends on winning a dispute.”
On the sidewalk afterward, Lennox stood with her arms wrapped around her coat.
“You must be enjoying this,” she told me.
I was tired enough to answer honestly. “I would have enjoyed seeing you keep your house.”
She turned away. Terrence offered to drive me home, but I had taken the bus and wanted the ride back alone.
That Saturday he came to help clear my gutters. I had not asked. He brought a borrowed ladder rather than buying one he couldn’t afford.
As he packed it away, I asked why he had agreed to sell Maple Street. For the first time, he answered without mentioning Lennox’s plans.
“I hated walking past the same cracked fence every morning,” he said. “I thought we were supposed to be further along.”
“You owned a house.”
“I know that now.”
He sat on the porch step. The back of his shirt was wet with sweat despite the cold.
“Her friends went places. They opened things, invested in things. I was the guy who fixed the water heater on Sunday. When she said we could sell and put the money to work, I wanted to be that guy too.”
“The one who didn’t fix the water heater?”
He almost smiled. Then he covered his eyes.
“I thought you’d say yes. Before we sold, I told her you would never let us end up stuck.”
There it was. Not a hidden signature or an elaborate scheme. My son’s certainty that my safety was the bottom rung of his ladder.
“Did you ask me?”
“No.”
“Then part of what you spent was something you never had.”
He nodded without defending himself. I stayed beside him until he could look up again, but I did not change my answer.
The next pressure came from Lennox’s mother. She called to tell me her daughter was suffering. I asked whether the new car could be sold.
“It was a gift,” she said.
“So was their down payment.”
She said I was being cruel. I told her I had an appointment and ended the call. Then I went to the hardware store and ordered the roof repair I had delayed. My hand shook when I signed the estimate. Spending money on myself felt strangely like stealing from an emergency that hadn’t happened yet.
Two weeks after the first lawyer’s meeting, Terrence sent me an apartment listing. One bedroom, older building, near his work. He said the landlord would consider them with a larger deposit and proof of income. They could manage it if they sold Lennox’s second car and several other things.
“Will you cosign?” he asked.
