Instead, I called my son David in Texas.
“I’m fine. But today, I’m taking my house back.”
There was silence on the other end.
Then David gave a soft laugh.
“It’s about time.”
He offered to fly up and help.
I looked around the quiet hotel room and shook my head.
“No. I know exactly what I need to do.”
At least, that was what I believed.
Because taking back control of my house would soon force me to open records Robert had left untouched for almost twenty years.
What was in those records?
And why had Sarah been so sure her mother would never look?
The records were in the attic.
I hadn’t been up there in years. Robert had always handled the important documents. He had a system. A filing cabinet. A locked box. He had told me once, shortly before he died, that everything I needed was in the blue folder on the top shelf. I had nodded. I had forgotten.
But now I remembered.
I drove to the house the next morning. I didn’t call ahead. I didn’t knock. I used my own key. The same key I had carried for forty years.
The kitchen was a mess. Cereal bowls. Coffee cups. Crumbs on the counter. Sarah was sitting at the table in her pajamas, scrolling through her phone. Greg was still in bed. Lily was watching cartoons in the living room.
Sarah looked up when I walked in. Her face cycled through surprise, annoyance, and then something colder.
“You’re back.”
“I live here,” I said.
“You walked out on dinner. Lily cried herself to sleep.”
“Lily spat on my food.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “She’s ten. She was joking.”
“She wasn’t joking. You told her I deserved it.”
Sarah didn’t deny it. She just looked at me. “Where were you?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“You turned off my phone.”
“I did.”
“You canceled my insurance.”
“I did.”
