Chapter 4 - The December ClosingWe drove to Willow House before sunrise. Grandma wanted to make sure the building was still standing, which sounded absurd until I saw the new padlock on the gate.
A red SOLD PENDING sign leaned against the fence. Someone had painted over the sign my mother made, the one with bright yellow letters and a little blue bird in the corner.
"Vanessa said she needed access for the insurance inspector," Dad murmured.
I turned on him. "You let her change the locks?"
"I believed her."
"And when she told you your daughter signed away a building without telling you?"
He did not answer.
Grandma took out her phone and called Naomi Price, the lawyer who had handled Mom's estate. Naomi answered before the second ring. When we showed her the scanned agreement, she asked us to come straight to her office with every document we had.
"Do not confront the buyer," she warned. "And don't try to break into the workshop."
At her office, Naomi spread the papers across a conference table. The sale contract named Cedar Bend Development, a company I'd never heard of. It listed the building for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars, closing December twenty-sixth. An accompanying letter promised forty percent of the money to a Christmas charity Vanessa had recently started.
"She said the church ran that charity," Dad said.
Naomi looked up. "The church's name isn't on this document. Vanessa is the charity's sole officer."
My father rubbed his face. "I signed because she told me you wanted the workshops to continue somewhere else."
"Did you ask me?" I said.
"No."
Naomi circled the witness line. The notarization claimed Grandma and I had signed at the same time in an office downtown. On that date, I had been at a school art fair in Ohio.
"We need the original log and the notary's identification records," Naomi said. "I'll seek an emergency order to prevent closing. But this is more than a family fight now."
Her office phone rang. She listened for a minute, then asked the caller to repeat something.
When she hung up, she looked at Grandma.
May you like
"Cedar Bend's attorney says your signatures aren't the only documents they have. They claim you sold your house, too."
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