Chapter 6 - WHY PAIGE THOUGHT GRANT DESERVED THE APARTMENT
Paige finally agreed to a mediated meeting.
Her attorney present.
Mine.
Mom’s.
No Grant.
Paige wore the pale blouse she had been wearing the day I cut the cords.
Seeing it made my chest tighten.
I started with the question that mattered emotionally.
“Did you tie my mother to that chair?”
Paige looked at her attorney.
Then at me.
“I helped restrain her.”
My hands curled under the table.
“Why?”
“She was trying to leave.”
“That is not an answer.”
“We needed her to listen.”
“To what?”
“That Grant wasn't stealing from her.”
Mom whispered:
“He was.”
Paige looked at her.
“You had already promised him help.”
“No.”
“You told him the apartment would eventually go to one of your sons.”
Mom stared.
“One of my sons is not a promise to Grant.”
Paige flushed.
There.
A belief.
Not a deed.
“Why were you involved?”
I asked.
Paige looked at me.
“Because you never see what your mother does to Grant.”
“What does she do?”
“She rescues him just enough to keep him dependent, then treats you like the successful son.”
I laughed once.
“That's your defense?”
“No.”
Paige’s eyes filled.
“I’m telling you why I got involved.”
Grant had complained for years.
Daniel gets respect.
Grant gets lectures.
Daniel has a stable career.
Grant gets emergency loans.
Daniel’s wife gets invited to financial conversations.
Grant gets treated like a teenager.
Some of that was true.
Mom admitted it.
“I don't trust him with money.”
Grant knew.
Resented it.
Paige believed the apartment could repair the imbalance.
Not because she wanted Grant living there.
Because buying it below market would give him equity.
If he bought for $325,000 and the condo was worth over $420,000, he immediately gained roughly $95,000 in value.
A private family transfer.
Mom could move into senior housing.
Grant could renovate and eventually sell.
Everyone “wins.”
Except Mom never agreed.
“Who came up with $325,000?” I asked.
Paige looked down.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because it was enough to pay Margaret for a smaller place and enough equity for Grant to qualify.”
“You decided how much my mother needed?”
“I was trying to make it work.”
“Did you arrange the lender?”
“Yes.”
“Did you set up Lakefront?”
“Grant did. Monica helped.”
“Did you transfer Mom’s seventy thousand?”
Paige went quiet.
Her attorney intervened.
“She has been advised not to answer questions currently subject to the bank’s review.”
Fair.
I hated fairness.
Still necessary.
Then Mom asked:
“Why did you tell Grant I favored Daniel?”
Paige looked at me.
Because that was where the relationship shifted.
“I believed it.”
“Why?”
Paige’s face hardened.
“Because Margaret offered to help us with our house three years ago and never did anything comparable for Grant.”
I stared at her.
“What house?”
Our Oak Park house.
When Paige and I bought it, Mom gifted us $20,000.
Wedding-era savings she had always intended to give me.
I thought Grant knew.
He did not.
Paige apparently told him last year.
Why?
Because she was angry at me during a marital fight.
That $20,000 became proof in Grant’s mind that I had been secretly favored.
The resentment grew.
Paige fed it.
Then turned herself into the person who could “fix” the imbalance by engineering the condo transfer.
My wife had not merely helped my brother.
She had recruited his anger.
Why?
That question remained.
May you like
Because ninety-five thousand dollars of instant equity for Grant did not benefit Paige directly.
Unless the apartment was supposed to do something else afterward.
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