Chapter 6 - What My Mother Never Told Me
Rebecca Vale refused to explain over the phone.
She wanted to meet.
Officer Ruiz strongly suggested that I not meet her alone.
I agreed.
Three days later, we sat in a quiet conference room at an attorney’s office.
By then, I had hired my own lawyer, Margaret Chen.
Not David’s lawyer.
Not the family attorney.
Mine.
That distinction felt revolutionary.
Rebecca arrived carrying a thick folder.
She was in her late forties, dressed simply, with exhaustion carved beneath her eyes.
“I’m filing for divorce,” she said before sitting down.
Nobody responded.
She placed the folder on the table.
“My husband has been acquiring properties along Hawthorne Road for almost two years.”
My mother’s house stood on Hawthorne Road.
“Why?”
Rebecca opened a map.
A proposed commercial development stretched across several parcels.
My mother’s property sat almost directly in the middle.
“Eric has investors,” Rebecca explained. “If he controls the remaining parcels, the assembled land becomes far more valuable.”
“How valuable?”
She named a number.
I thought I had misheard.
My mother’s little rental house, together with adjoining parcels, could affect a development worth millions.
Suddenly Brandon’s discounted sale made sense.
He hadn’t simply found a buyer.
He had delivered me to one.
Rebecca slid another document toward me.
It was an email.
Eric to Brandon.
GET HER SIGNATURE. MEMORY ISSUE MAY HELP IF WE NEED ALTERNATIVE AUTHORITY.
My stomach tightened.
Another email:
D. WILL COME AROUND IF YOU KEEP PRESSURE ON.
“D?” I asked.
Rebecca shook her head.
“I don’t know whether that means David.”
I appreciated the answer.
No assumptions.
Not anymore.
Then came an email that made me physically cold.
IF SHE FALLS APART, GUARDIANSHIP IS AN OPTION.
Guardianship.
My forgetfulness had not merely been convenient.
Someone had considered using it.
I thought about missing keys.
Moved documents.
Conversations I was told had happened.
White pills.
“How much of this did Brandon know?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Enough.”
That hurt more than I expected.
“Did Eric tell him to drug me?”
“I never saw anything like that.”
“Did Eric tell him to hurt me?”
“No.”
“Did Eric order anyone to fake my memory problems?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“I saw conversations about documenting your confusion.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No. I have no evidence he told anyone to manufacture symptoms.”
Again, the truth was bad enough.
I didn’t need a bigger villain than the evidence gave me.
My mother’s house had become valuable.
Brandon was desperate.
Eric saw an opportunity.
David wanted to save our son.
And somewhere along the way, my right to say no became an obstacle everyone thought they could manage.
Margaret asked Rebecca why she was helping.
Rebecca looked down.
“Because Eric did something similar to my father.”
Nobody spoke.
“He convinced Dad to sign over control of a warehouse during a medical crisis. Technically, some of the paperwork held up. Morally…”
Her voice broke.
“I told myself business was business.”
She looked at me.
“Then I saw your name.”
“What about it?”
“My father knew your mother.”
The room went still.
“What?”
“Eleanor Miller.”
My mother.
Rebecca reached into the folder and removed an envelope.
“Dad died last year. I found this among his papers.”
My mother’s handwriting appeared across the front.
FOR SUSAN, IF HAWTHORNE ROAD EVER BECOMES A PROBLEM.
I stopped breathing.
My mother had been dead eleven years.
Yet somehow she was reaching across time.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a letter.
Susan,
If you are reading this, someone has probably discovered that the land is worth more than the house.
Do not let anyone rush you.
Your grandfather purchased an additional narrow parcel behind the property in 1968. It provides the only practical access route connecting the larger lots behind Hawthorne Road to the county road.
I kept it separate.
It is yours.
Do not sell because someone tells you family requires it.
Family that loves you will still love you after you say no.
I had to stop reading.
That last sentence destroyed me.
My mother had understood a lesson I learned forty years too late.
Family that loves you will still love you after you say no.
Beneath the letter was a copy of another deed.
A strip of land.
Small on paper.
Enormously important in reality.
Eric didn’t merely need the house.
He needed access.
And my mother had protected it separately.
Margaret studied the document.
“This changes the negotiation considerably.”
“I’m not negotiating.”
Everyone looked at me.
I folded my mother’s letter.
“I’m not selling anything.”
For the first time since the mug broke, the decision came easily.
That afternoon, we learned that the attempted transfer had been stopped.
My property remained mine.
But my marriage remained unresolved.
David had moved out of our house voluntarily.
Brandon was cooperating with investigators.
Eric had retained attorneys.
Nothing was over.
Then Margaret received a call.
She listened for several minutes.
When she hung up, she looked troubled.
“What?”
“David wants to meet.”
“No.”
“He says he has something that belongs to you.”
“He can give it to my attorney.”
“He specifically asked that you see it.”
“What is it?”
Margaret paused.
“A second notebook.”
I stared at her.
“I only have one notebook.”
“According to David, you had two.”
My skin prickled.
“What’s in the other one?”
“He says it proves he started suspecting Brandon before Thursday.”
I didn’t know whether to believe him.
But if the notebook was really mine, I wanted it.
May you like
Because apparently, the woman everyone said was forgetting everything had been leaving clues everywhere.
And one of them might finally tell me whether my husband had been my accomplice, my coward, or something in between.
