Chapter 14 - What She Needed Signed
Ryan stared at Vanessa.
“You asked that?”
She stood up too quickly. “It sounds worse than it was.”
“How could it sound better?”
“I was panicking.”
“About our marriage license?”
“No. About everything.”
Ryan’s voice cracked for the first time.
“Were you planning for me to change my mind?”
Vanessa covered her face.
Diane stepped forward. “She had cold feet. Brides panic.”
Ryan turned on her.
“Stop speaking for her.”
The room went still.
He looked at Vanessa again.
“What was the paper you took from the folder?”
She refused to answer.
Jonah said, “If it involved Margaret’s property, we need to know.”
Vanessa’s shoulders collapsed.
“It was an acknowledgment form.”
“For what?” Grandma asked.
“The lake house sale.”
Jonah frowned. “There is no legitimate acknowledgment form in the closing file.”
Vanessa nodded miserably.
“Mom made one.”
Diane hissed, “You idiot.”
That ended whatever loyalty Vanessa still had left.
She spun toward her mother.
“You told me it would protect us.”
“It would have.”
“From what?”
“From being pushed out by Clara.”
I shook my head. “I never asked for the lake house.”
Diane looked at me with twenty years of resentment.
“You never had to ask. Margaret handed you sympathy like money.”
Grandma stood.
“I loved her.”
“You pitied her.”
“No.” Grandma’s voice sharpened. “I pitied you.”
Diane went silent.
Grandma continued. “Because you spent your whole marriage competing with a woman who died years ago and a child who never competed back.”
Diane slapped her hand against the desk.
“She was always there.”
“Clara was a child.”
The words hit the room like a door slamming.
Diane’s face crumpled for half a second.
Then Ryan asked the question no one had asked yet.
“Where is the fake acknowledgment now?”
Vanessa looked down at her white satin clutch.
Everyone followed her eyes.
She opened it slowly.
Inside was a folded document.
Jonah took one look at the bottom and went pale.
“That signature,” he said, “isn’t Margaret’s.”
Grandma frowned.
May you like
Jonah looked at Thomas.
“It’s yours.”
