Chapter 3
I asked Dad to show Olivia the deed he had submitted.
He refused.
“That’s between Rachel and me,” he said.
“It has my name on it,” Olivia answered.
He pushed back from the desk.
“Both of you are acting as if I’m a thief.”
I looked at the false signature on the letter.
“I would like the truth,” I said.
David came downstairs with Ben and Lily. I stopped speaking until he took them outside to get breakfast. Whatever adults had done in this house, the children did not need to stand in the study and hear us accuse one another.
Susan followed them to the porch. Olivia stayed.
Elena arrived with a copy Michael had obtained of the submitted deed. It named Olivia as the new owner. A notary acknowledgment said I had appeared in person the previous Tuesday.
I had been at a naval medical appointment in San Diego that day. I had receipts and people who could confirm it.
Olivia read the deed in silence.
“I didn’t sign this,” I told her.
She looked at Dad.
“Who was at the notary’s office?”
He crossed his arms.
“The paperwork is legitimate.”
“That’s not an answer,” she said.
I had spent years thinking Olivia would believe him over me, whatever I said. Seeing her question him should have relieved me. Instead, I remembered how she had raised her glass at the party while he told me to leave.
Elena advised me to keep the original records secure and let the county and investigators examine the documents. Michael was asking the recorder’s office not to accept the transfer while the claim was disputed.
Dad followed us into the hall.
“You’ll put your own father in trouble over a house?”
“You put my name on a deed I never signed.”
He looked at Olivia again.
“I did this for your children.”
She flinched.
I stepped onto the porch. David had parked the SUV beneath the trees. Ben and Lily were eating pastries from a paper bag, pleased to be on an unexpected trip. I wished I could let them keep believing it was a holiday.
Olivia joined me.
“Dad told me you were giving us the villa because you couldn’t keep up with it,” she said.
“I pay someone to maintain it.”
“He said you were too proud to tell me.”
“You called me after I said it was my house. You told me you were moving in anyway.”
She stared across the drive.
“I thought you’d changed your mind and wouldn’t admit it.”
I did not soften what she had done.
“You saw me standing there with my bag. You heard him tell me to go away.”
“I know.”
Her eyes filled. She did not ask me to comfort her.
David came over and asked what was happening. Olivia showed him the deed. He read it, then looked at her.
“We need to take the kids somewhere else,” he said.
“Dad says we have a right to stay.”
“Rachel says she didn’t sign it. We can’t unpack their beds and hope that makes the question disappear.”
I was grateful to him for saying it. I also noticed he had said nothing when he first saw me at the party.
“We’ll get a hotel,” he told me.
“Thank you.”
Inside, Dad heard the plan and accused David of siding against his family. David kept packing. Susan came in with the children’s jackets, her expression tight.
By noon, Olivia’s belongings were back in the SUV. I watched Lily carry her framed school picture out of my living room. She asked whether I was coming to their hotel.
“I’ll see you another day,” I said.
She seemed satisfied. Ben waved from the back seat.
When they drove away, the villa felt enormous.
Dad and Susan were the last to leave. Dad placed the spare key on the kitchen counter with enough force to make me jump.
“You’ll regret humiliating me,” he said.
“I asked you to leave a house you know is mine.”
He went out without answering. Susan paused beside me.
“He was frightened,” she said.
“Of what?”
“Losing everything.”
She followed him before I could ask what she meant.
I walked through the rooms after they left. A toy car sat under James’s desk. One of Olivia’s photographs had scratched the wood on my grandmother’s chest. The things themselves were small. What hurt was the ease with which they had moved my life aside.
Ethan called to ask whether I wanted the security code changed. I did. He had the licensed local company send someone; I stayed at the villa while the technician replaced the access codes and documented the spare keys Dad had used.
Then I called Michael.
“What did Mom mean by losing everything?”
“We’ve been looking at the money you gave your father,” he said. “He told you it was for the family home. County records show that home was sold before you made the fifty-thousand-dollar payment.”
I sat down on the kitchen floor.
“Then what did I pay for?”
“We don’t know yet.”
May you like
An email arrived while we spoke. It contained a photograph of the forged deed and one sentence from an unknown sender.
Ask Susan who sat across from the notary.
