“I know,” I said. “I’m not angry at you for trusting your mother.”
“But you’re angry,” he said.
“I’m angry that she never told either of us the truth,” I said. “I’m angry that she’s spent eleven years acting like this house partly belongs to her. And we had no idea she actually had the paperwork to back it up.”
Caleb read through the documents himself, slowly, his face changing with every page.
I watched something harden behind his eyes as he reached the third document. The one clearly showing his own signature beside a paragraph he’d apparently never fully read before signing it. He set the papers down carefully, like they might shatter. And rubbed both hands over his face for a long moment before speaking again.
“Fifteen percent,” he said quietly. “She’s owned fifteen percent of our house for nine years. And she’s used. That fifteen percent as an excuse to walk through here like she owns the other eighty-five too.”
“That’s exactly what I think happened,” I said.
We sat together at that table for a long time, working through what to do next.
“We need to talk to her,” Caleb finally said. “Together. Tonight, if you’re ready.”
