Chapter 11 - The Brother Helen Never Had to Choose Before
There was no brother.
That was what made the next damage stranger.
Alex had always imagined the conflict as himself against Richard for Helen’s loyalty.
But once Helen moved out, she refused to move in with Alex.
“I need to know I can live without either of you arranging my life.”
Alex accepted it.
Richard did not.
He called repeatedly until Helen blocked him.
Then he sent apologies through relatives.
Flowers.
A letter.
A check for the first month’s rent.
Helen returned the check.
That was when Richard’s anger shifted.
He accused her of ruining him.
“You put the house in Alex’s hands,” he said during a lawyer-supervised conversation. “Then you spent six years telling me Samuel would fix it.”
Helen did not deny it.
“I was wrong.”
“You let me spend years working on a house you knew I could never own.”
“I never asked you to submit a fake deed.”
Richard stood.
His attorney told him to sit.
“I did not forge that.”
“Then who did?”
No answer.
The deed investigation focused increasingly on Paula Reed, the notary.
She admitted notarizing several business documents for Richard over the years.
She denied knowingly notarizing a forged signature.
Her log had been altered after the fact.
The alteration was handwritten.
The handwriting matched Richard’s office manager, not Richard.
The truth was becoming harder to reduce to one villain.
Meanwhile Nate Collins sued Richard for return of his $90,000 company deposit.
Cole Custom Renovation laid off four workers.
Alex hated knowing that people with mortgages and children were becoming collateral damage.
He offered Nate no private money.
Rachel warned that doing so could entangle Alex in Richard’s business dispute.
Instead Alex gave investigators and Nate’s attorney whatever records he lawfully possessed and stayed out.
That restraint cost him emotionally.
His instinct was to solve.
Samuel had solved problems with deeds.
Helen solved them with secrets.
Richard solved them with leverage.
Alex was beginning to understand that solving other people’s choices could become another form of control.
At work, Seattle informed him he either needed to return within two weeks or step aside from his project leadership role.
Alex chose to step aside temporarily.
It cost him a promotion he had spent two years pursuing.
Helen heard about it from Marlene.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did.”
“For me?”
Alex shook his head.
“For myself. I’ve spent eleven years treating Ohio like a problem that would stay solved if I didn’t look at it.”
Helen’s eyes filled.
May you like
It was not forgiveness.
It was the first time both of them admitted absence had become a choice too.
