Chapter 6 - The House They Were Selling
The sale documents had been signed three weeks before Mom died, or so Grant claimed. The buyer was an LLC called Alder Ridge Holdings. Grant managed it. Mallory held half its shares.
"How much?" I asked Nora.
"A little over nine hundred thousand dollars for the house and twelve acres."
"Then why didn't Mom tell us?"
"Because the signature isn't hers. And the contract includes terms she'd already refused in writing."
I looked through the ICU glass. Claire lay motionless beneath a blue blanket. Mom was buried. My daughter jumped at every unfamiliar voice. Somehow my sister had found time to put a price tag on our childhood home.
"What does the cross have to do with a real-estate contract?"
Nora exhaled. "Your father bought it during a terrible winter, when Mallory was four and nearly died of pneumonia. Your mother used to say it reminded her to protect the people who couldn't protect themselves."
"Mallory says Mom promised it to her."
"She did, when Mallory was a child. But a promise about a necklace isn't ownership of the house."
Nora explained that Mom had recently discovered missing payments from her bank account. A separate loan had been taken out using paperwork Mom said she never signed. She had hidden copies of the financial records before entering hospice.
"Where?" I asked.
"She wouldn't say on the phone. She only said Claire had what we needed to find them."
"Claire can't tell us anything."
"I know."
We stood silent beside the vending machines until Jo approached with Emma's breakfast tray.
"You need to eat, too," she said.
"I can't."
"Then sit with your daughter while she does. That's something you can do."
I followed her. Emma was arranging grapes in a circle.
"Those are for Grandma," she said. "She liked the green ones."
I sat beside her and tried not to cry.
May you like
Then Nora's phone rang. She listened, and her face drained of color.
"Grant's people have changed the locks," she told me. "And a truck is already in your mother's driveway."
