Chapter 6 - CATHERINE FINALLY SAID WHAT SHE HAD BEEN HOLDING
The title report confirmed the house was heavily leveraged.
First mortgage.
Home-equity line.
My deed of trust.
A tax lien connected to Mason’s architecture practice.
The equity was real.
But nowhere near four million dollars.
Vanessa needed the sale.
That explained urgency.
It did not excuse trying to erase my claim.
Catherine reacted differently.
When Leah showed us the numbers, she said:
“You gave Mason $480,000?”
I nodded.
She stood.
“How did I never know that?”
“I didn’t think it was your business.”
She laughed once.
“Of course.”
“Catherine—”
“No, Mom. This is exactly it.”
She walked to Leah’s office window.
“When I needed twenty thousand dollars for the down payment on my first condo, you told me adults should build their own lives.”
My face burned.
“Mason was buying a house with room for me.”
“That makes it better?”
I had no answer.
Catherine turned.
“You sold your Boulder place and handed him almost half a million dollars. Then you moved into his house and called it practical. He becomes your bank, your landlord, your favorite person, and now everyone is shocked that Vanessa resented the arrangement?”
Leah quietly left us alone.
I wanted to defend Mason.
I nearly did.
Instead I asked:
“Did you resent it too?”
Catherine’s eyes filled.
“For twenty years.”
That was the emotional cost of learning the truth.
I had spent weeks talking about Vanessa controlling family information.
I had ignored the way my own choices shaped Catherine’s place in the family.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked away.
“You always say that after Mason needs something.”
“He’s dead.”
“I know.”
Her voice broke.
“That’s what makes this harder. I’m angry at someone I can’t fight with anymore.”
I understood that better than she knew.
Two days later Catherine called me.
“I found something.”
After Walter died, Catherine had stored several boxes of family tax records in her basement.
Among them were copies of the sale documents from my old Boulder townhouse.
The closing proceeds were $612,000.
Within three weeks, $480,000 went into an account belonging to Mason’s architecture firm.
Not directly to the Cherry Hills purchase.
I stared at the transfer.
“That can’t be right.”
Catherine pointed.
“Look at the date.”
The Cherry Hills closing happened six weeks later.
Where had my money been for those six weeks?
Leah requested the business records.
Vanessa’s attorney objected.
That resistance changed Catherine.
She had been skeptical of my legal fight.
Now she sat beside me and said:
“Whatever Mason did with that money, we find out.”
May you like
Not because she suddenly thought he was innocent.
Because she was finally done letting him be the family member nobody was allowed to examine.
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