Chapter 4 - I STOPPED BEING THE EASY MOTHER
I hired Leah.
It was the first decision I made that Vanessa could not reverse with a phone call or a guilty look.
Leah notified the title company that I had not authorized any lien release.
She requested the underlying promissory note, repayment records, closing documents from the original Cherry Hills purchase, and the complete probate inventory for Mason’s estate.
She also advised me not to return to the cabin alone.
That hurt more than I expected.
The cabin had belonged to my husband, Walter, before he died.
He built half the kitchen himself.
Mason learned to fish in the creek below it.
Catherine broke her wrist there at twelve after jumping from the porch railing because Mason dared her.
Our family had been happy there once.
At some point, Mason and Vanessa took over the taxes and maintenance.
Later Mason put the cabin into a family holding company for insurance reasons.
I signed things then too.
I barely read them.
That sentence was becoming the soundtrack of my mistakes.
Catherine took me home with her.
Her guest room was small and clean, with a view of snow-covered foothills.
The first night I heard her arguing quietly with her husband, Tom.
“This could take months.”
“I know.”
“Your mom can stay.”
“I know.”
“What I’m saying is you don’t have to fix everything because Mason can’t.”
I lay awake afterward.
Catherine had spent her whole life believing she came second.
Now Mason was dead and I was arriving with his unfinished problems anyway.
In the morning, I told her I would find a furnished apartment.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
That was why I did.
I rented a one-bedroom apartment in north Boulder for three months.
It cost more than I wanted.
Legal fees came from savings I had intended to leave to my children.
I paid both.
Protection was expensive.
So was finally looking at the truth.
Vanessa responded through counsel.
She claimed the $480,000 obligation had been “substantially satisfied” through years of housing, caregiving, transportation, and direct payments made to me.
I almost laughed at caregiving.
For six years I cooked Sunday dinners.
Picked up dry cleaning.
Waited for contractors.
Took Mason to physical therapy after knee surgery.
If anyone had provided unpaid labor in that house, I had.
Still, Leah cautioned me.
“Don’t assume her entire argument is false because parts feel insulting.”
That was good advice.
We gathered records.
Bank deposits.
Checks.
My contribution to the house.
My living expenses.
The actual costs Mason and Vanessa paid on my behalf.
Then something appeared in Mason’s business files.
Three months before his death, he emailed Leah:
I need Mom protected if Vanessa and I cannot resolve things.
Not if I die.
If Vanessa and I cannot resolve things.
I stared at the sentence.
“Were they separating?”
Leah could not answer because Mason had never formally retained her for divorce work.
But she said:
“He was afraid the property dispute would reach you.”
My son had hidden the documents before his death because his marriage was already breaking.
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Vanessa had not sent me to the mountains because grief changed her.
She had been waiting for the moment Mason was no longer there to stop her.
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