Chapter 16 - The Birthday Plan
My mother’s birthday dinner had not been a coincidence.
Dileia had scheduled the showing for the exact time she knew I would be four hours away.
The plan had been simple.
Show the duplex.
Get the Holts emotionally committed.
Pressure me that night through Mom and Dad.
If I refused, create a family emergency big enough to make me stop thinking about paperwork.
“What does ‘use birthday’ mean?” Mom whispered.
Patricia looked at her carefully.
“Did Dileia ask you to call Renata about money that evening?”
Mom’s face changed.
“She told me Dad’s cardiology bill might not be covered.”
Dad looked up.
“What?”
“She said not to worry you.”
There was no uncovered cardiology bill.
Dileia had invented it.
She had planned to make Mom ask me for money while buyers were inside my property.
Keep me distracted.
Keep me guilty.
Keep me useful.
Mom cried so hard she had to leave the room.
Dad stayed.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I looked at him.
“For what part?”
“For teaching you that being the capable one meant you had to carry everybody.”
That landed harder than any apology Dileia had offered.
He continued.
“When you were twenty, I called you because I knew you’d answer. When you were twenty-five, I still called you. I never asked what it cost you.”
I did not rescue him from the discomfort.
He needed to sit in it.
So did I.
Patricia’s phone buzzed.
She read the message and frowned.
“The commission investigator found another email.”
“From Dileia?”
“No.”
“Frank?”
She shook her head.
“Your mother.”
Mom stopped crying in the hallway.
Patricia turned the screen toward us.
The email had been sent six weeks earlier.
May you like
Subject: RENATA’S PROPERTY.
And Mom had sent it directly to Dileia.
