Chapter 9 - WHEN FAMILY DRAMA BECAME PAPERWORK
Rebecca moved quickly.
Not magically.
Quickly.
She sent Diane’s attorney the recorded deed, my closing statements, bank records showing the actual down-payment sources, the condo association documents containing the questionable signatures, and Linda’s statement that she had not witnessed Eric sign the agreement.
She also warned that filing a knowingly false property claim could create consequences Diane might not enjoy.
Diane did not record anything.
Instead, she changed tactics.
She called Melissa.
She called Eric’s cousins.
She called an old family friend who had known his father.
By Thursday, Eric had received six messages accusing him of “letting Claire erase his mother.”
One cousin wrote:
After everything Aunt Diane sacrificed for you.
That one hurt him.
I could tell because he did not delete it.
Meanwhile, the property issue began affecting us financially.
The townhouse we had been considering went under contract to another buyer.
Our real-estate agent told us no sensible buyer would want Unit 3B while someone was threatening a title dispute.
The market wouldn’t wait for our family to become healthy.
For the first time, Diane’s behavior cost us something measurable.
Eric became quiet.
Too quiet.
One night I found him sitting at the kitchen table looking at listings for apartments near Diane’s neighborhood.
My stomach dropped.
“What is that?”
He closed the laptop halfway.
“Nothing.”
“That’s not nothing.”
“I was looking at places for Mom.”
Relief and anger arrived together.
“For her?”
“Yes.”
“She has a house.”
“Her insurance contractor found mold.”
I stared at him.
“Is there actually mold?”
He gave me a tired look.
“I asked for the report.”
That was progress.
A sad kind.
He turned the laptop back around.
“She can’t stay with Linda forever.”
“No.”
“I can help her find somewhere temporary without letting her live here.”
“Yes.”
He looked almost surprised.
I realized he had expected me to say any support for Diane was betrayal.
“I don’t need you to stop loving her,” I said. “I need your love for her to stop making decisions for me.”
He nodded.
Then his phone rang.
Melissa.
Eric answered.
His sister’s voice was strained.
“I found something in Dad’s old tax box.”
“What?”
“Mom’s note about Grandpa’s money.”
Eric sat straighter.
“We already know she used it for Dad’s company.”
“No,” Melissa said. “This is later.”
“How much later?”
“After Dad died.”
The room changed.
“What does it say?”
Melissa hesitated.
“Eric, there’s a payment to a company called Bennett Workplace Solutions.”
I looked up sharply.
That was my employer.
Not my current department.
The corporate parent.
“How much?” I asked.
Melissa heard me.
“Twenty-four thousand dollars.”
My skin went cold.
I had worked for Bennett Workplace Solutions for almost nine years.
Diane’s missing family money had somehow passed through the company where I worked.
Years before I met Eric.
May you like
That complication put my own credibility inside the story.
And for the first time, I wondered whether Diane had known who I was before her son ever introduced us.
