I watched the color leave his face.
“What is this?”
“A copy of the authorization submitted to the title company,” Diane explained. “It purports to appoint Sabrina Harrington as Mrs. Miller’s representative for the sale of her property.”
Caleb looked up.
“My mother never authorized this?”
“She has confirmed she did not. We have also challenged the document’s authenticity and placed the title company on notice.”
Sabrina suddenly reached for the paper.
Caleb moved it out of her reach.
“Is that your signature beside Mom’s?”
She hesitated.
Then she nodded.
“I was helping her.”
“With a property sale she refused?”
Sabrina began crying.
For a moment, I almost believed the tears.
Then she pointed at me.
“She has no idea what this development could mean for us! We could have had enough money to start our lives without worrying about mortgages or debts.”
Caleb stared at her.
“We already had a life.”
“You had a salary,” she snapped. “That’s not the same thing.”
The silence afterward felt enormous.
Caleb looked as though she had struck him.
I knew my son had always worried about money.
His father had died while Caleb was finishing graduate school, and he had worked relentlessly to establish himself as an architect.
He was proud of his modest apartment, his career, and the savings he had accumulated.
Sabrina had spent two years telling him his success was never quite enough.
A nicer car.
A larger house.
A honeymoon on another continent.
A lifestyle that required him to keep reaching for something just beyond his grasp.
