Chapter 4 - THE MONEY THAT WASN’T FOR THE HOUSE
Robert sent no receipts.
Helen sent three.
One was legitimate.
Two were estimates, not paid invoices.
Thomas responded with a simple question.
Where did the rest of the money go?
Neither parent answered.
That afternoon, Thomas called Mara Klein, the attorney who had handled the house purchase.
He was not trying to evict his parents.
He told her that immediately.
Mara said, “Good, because that would require its own process, and nothing needs to happen impulsively.”
Thomas explained the financial support and the party.
Mara asked to review the lease.
Robert and Helen had another fourteen months on a fixed three-year lease at $650 per month.
The actual monthly carrying cost of the Lakewood house was closer to $2,300 once taxes, insurance, and maintenance were included.
“You’ve been subsidizing them heavily,” Mara said.
“I knew that.”
“Did you know how heavily?”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
Thomas thought about Rebecca’s question.
Can I not go there anymore?
“Transparency.”
“Then start there.”
Thomas changed nothing about the lease.
He did stop sending cash.
He notified his parents that necessary expenses would be paid directly to vendors after he received actual bills.
No more reimbursements.
No more estimates.
No more emergency transfers.
Helen called within ten minutes.
“You’re treating us like criminals.”
“I’m asking for receipts.”
“Your father is seventy years old.”
“He’s sixty-eight.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No. It isn’t.”
She began crying.
Thomas almost apologized.
That reflex had been trained into him since childhood.
He waited.
Helen’s crying slowed when he did not rescue her from it.
Finally she said, “Caroline needs to talk to you.”
“Why?”
Helen hung up.
Caroline called that evening.
She sounded angry.
“What did you do?”
“I stopped sending Mom and Dad unverified money.”
“Well, apparently Dad can’t make Tyler’s tuition payment now.”
Thomas sat straighter.
“Whose tuition?”
“My son’s.”
Caroline’s seventeen-year-old son Tyler attended a private college-prep school in Golden.
Thomas had assumed Caroline and her husband, Mark, paid the tuition.
There was a long pause.
Caroline said, “Mom and Dad cover part of it.”
“With what money?”
“Their money.”
“What money, Caroline?”
She became defensive.
“Dad has retirement income.”
“He told me they barely cover groceries.”
“That’s not what they told me.”
Thomas opened his spreadsheet.
The dates began to shift in his mind.
Every August, Helen requested a large transfer.
Every January, another.
School semesters.
“What exactly did they tell you?”
Caroline’s voice lost some of its anger.
“That Dad had an investment account from the business.”
Thomas stared at the screen.
Robert had told Thomas the business collapse had wiped out almost everything liquid.
That was why Thomas bought the house.
That was why the rent was so low.
That was why Thomas had paid dental bills, property taxes, car repairs, and birthday parties.
“How much have they paid for Tyler?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ask.”
“Thomas—”
“Ask.”
Caroline was quiet.
Then she said something he had not expected.
“They pay for Madison’s dance program too.”
Madison was fourteen.
A competitive dance program that required travel.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
Thomas looked at the false furnace reimbursement.
The fake roofing repair.
The missing catering money.
His parents had not merely exaggerated household expenses.
May you like
They had been redirecting Thomas’s money into another branch of the family.
And if Caroline truly believed the money came from Robert’s investments, then their parents had been lying to both of them.
