Heather threatened to send the storage bill to me.
My son followed me into the kitchen.
He begged me to make an exception until his in-laws could settle.
I asked why they hadn’t kept their former home until another one was available.
Andrew said the sale happened faster than expected.
Then he admitted Heather had urged them to accept an offer because she had promised they could move in here.
He claimed he didn’t know she’d offered my bedroom.
I returned to the dresser to retrieve my husband’s letters.
A folder lay underneath the floor plan.
It contained estimates for a renovation that would convert the downstairs into a separate apartment with a small kitchenette.
Heather’s parents might have been surprised by that too.
But beneath the estimates was a draft agreement naming me as a tenant in the upstairs portion of my own home.
I asked Andrew who had drawn it up.
He shook his head.
Then Heather’s mother walked into the room holding a copy of her home-sale contract.
“Margaret,” she said quietly, “Heather told us you were the buyer.”
The paper shook in Heather’s mother’s hand. Across the bedroom, the rented truck idled against the curb, its engine sending a low vibration through the window glass. Heather’s father straightened from the bathroom doorway and looked at his daughter as though he had misheard her name.
“What do you mean she was the buyer?” I asked.
Heather’s mother, Jean, swallowed. “She said you were buying our townhouse through a company so we could leave without worrying about strangers.”
“I have never offered to buy a townhouse.”
Heather opened her mouth, then closed it. Andrew put down the measuring tape. It lay across the bedspread like a strip of evidence no one wanted to touch.
Jean held up the sale contract. “We agreed to the lower price because Heather told us it was staying in the family. She said you’d rather use your savings to help us than see the place sold to an investor.”
My mind moved from the contract to the renovation plans to the draft agreement calling me a tenant. Three separate papers, all arranged as though other people could decide where I belonged and what my money was for.
“May I see that?” I asked.
Jean handed it over. The buyer named on the first page was a limited liability company called North Glen Properties. I had never heard of it. A signature beneath the seller information belonged to Jean’s husband, Walter. Neither of them appeared to have read the buyer’s ownership disclosure tucked into the packet.
“Heather said it was the company you used for estate planning,” Walter said. He leaned a hand against my dresser. “We didn’t think to question it.”
“It’s not mine,” I said. “And no one is moving into my bedroom today.”
Heather recovered her voice. “Mom, don’t act as though I committed a crime because I tried to coordinate a difficult move.”
“I’m not your mother,” I said quietly. “And you didn’t coordinate a move. You told four people four different stories and expected us to meet in the middle without asking questions.”
Andrew picked up the draft tenant agreement. He read a line, then another. “Heather, why would Margaret pay rent here? She owns the house.”
