Chapter 2
I shut the wooden box and stepped away from the kitchen island.
The gate had opened for me because Dad gave me a code. That meant someone else might have one too.
The car stopped outside the front doors.
I recognized Mom’s white sedan before the driver got out.
For one hopeful second, I thought she had followed to apologize. Then I remembered her face as I drove away.
She crossed the driveway carrying her phone and a ring of keys.
I stayed where I was.
Mom tried her key in the front door. It did not turn. She tried another and then knocked hard.
“Maya. Open it.”
I called Dad.
“She’s here.”
“I’m ten minutes away,” he said. “Keep the door locked.”
“You knew she might come?”
“I thought she would call me first.”
Mom knocked again.
“Dad, what is this place?”
“It belonged to your grandmother. Read the page beneath the photograph. Then I’ll tell you everything.”
The line went quiet.
I took out the second page.
Grandma Grace had placed the house in a trust for me. Dad was the trustee until I turned twenty-five. After that, he was supposed to give me the records and transfer control.
I had turned twenty-five fourteen months earlier.
Outside, Mom called my name again.
I went to the door but did not open it.
“Why do you have keys to my house?” I asked.
There was a pause.
“So you’ve read it.”
“Some of it.”
“Then you know your father brought you here to hurt me.”
“He says Grandma left it to me.”
“He always liked the story better that way.”
I looked at the old photograph through the kitchen doorway. Grandma was standing beside the front step, her arm raised against the sun.
“Did Grandma leave me this house?” I asked.
Mom pressed her lips together.
“Yes. That doesn’t mean you understand what it cost to keep it.”
Before I could ask what she meant, another car came through the gate. Dad got out and walked toward us.
Mom turned to face him.
“You gave her the code.”
“She needed somewhere to go after you told her to leave.”
“You wanted me to say it.”
Dad stopped.
“I asked you to sit down with us tonight.”
“You put her in my desk.”
“I asked her to find the insurance folder. I didn’t know you kept Grace’s letter there.”
They stared at each other across the driveway.
I opened the door, leaving it on its chain.
“Will one of you tell me why I’m learning about my own house like this?”
Dad’s face fell when he saw me.
“I owe you an explanation,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Mom gave a sharp laugh.
“He’s been practicing that apology for months.”
“Then start with the truth,” I said.
Dad nodded.
“Let me come inside.”
I took off the chain. He entered, but Mom stepped forward with him.
“This is a family matter,” she said.
I thought of the dinner table and my suitcases.
“You can both come in,” I told her. “You can also leave if you start shouting.”
She looked surprised that I had set a rule in front of her. She came inside without answering.
Dad opened the wooden box and took out a thin folder.
“Your grandmother bought the land thirty years ago,” he said. “The house was built later. She wanted you to have it when you were old enough to decide what to do with it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when I turned twenty-five?”
He rubbed a hand over his forehead.
“Because I failed to check what had been done with the trust accounts. By the time I found out, I was afraid to tell you how long I’d missed it.”
“What had been done?”
Mom moved toward the window.
“Robert.”
“She has a right to know.”
I waited.
“Money was taken from an account Grace set up to maintain the property,” Dad said. “The withdrawals were made with an authorization bearing my name. I didn’t sign it.”
Mom turned back.
“I kept the house running.”
“That’s what the account was for,” Dad said. “Not personal expenses.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
“How much?”
Dad gave me a number.
It was more than I earned in three years.
Mom came toward me.
“Before you judge me, you should hear why.”
“Then tell me.”
She looked at Dad first.
“When Robert’s company almost failed, I used the account to pay debts he didn’t even know we had.”
“That was years ago,” he said. “The later withdrawals went elsewhere.”
“You don’t know what I was covering later.”
“I asked for the records. You refused.”
Mom looked at the box.
“Grace made sure I’d never have any say over that house. I was the one who took care of her when she was sick.”
I had helped Grandma through her final summer too. Mom had been there on some days, though I remembered them arguing.
“If you needed money,” I said, “why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would have looked at me exactly like that.”
She turned away before I could answer.
Dad reached into the box again. He handed me Grandma’s letter. The envelope was the one I had seen in Mom’s desk.
“You should read it alone,” he said.
I held it without opening it.
“Is there anything else in this box I don’t know about?”
May you like
Dad glanced at Mom.
“Yes,” he said. “There’s a record of who has been using this house for the past year.”
