Chapter 9
A pause.
Not long.
Half a second.
But I had been her mother for thirty-four years, and I knew the sound of her catching herself.
"Oh," she said.
"I didn't know you were going up this weekend."
"I had an appointment.
A buyer, Madison.
Someone who may purchase the property."
Another pause, longer this time.
"You're really going through with it."
"That's not why I'm calling." I moved away from the kitchen, toward the hallway, away from Richard.
"I'm calling because I'm standing in my own house, which your father-in-law has been renting to strangers since April.
And because I have a signed management agreement in my hand with my name on it — a name I did not write."
Silence.
"Madison."
"Mom, it wasn't — it was supposed to help.
The house was just sitting empty and you were talking about selling, and Connor thought—"
"Did you know your name wasn't on that document?"
"What?"
"The management agreement.
It's signed in my name.
Not yours.
Not Connor's.
Mine." I kept my voice level.
"Did you know that?"
"I — no.
Richard said he was handling the paperwork.
I didn't see it."
"Did you know about the rental income going into Connor's account?"
The silence this time was different.
Longer.
The kind that meant she was deciding how much to confirm.
"Madison.
Answer me."
"Connor mentioned it was helping with the mortgage," she said quietly.
"I didn't ask a lot of questions."
"Fourteen thousand dollars," I said.
"In four months.
From my house.
Without my knowledge or consent."
"Mom—"
"I need you to tell me something honestly.
Did you tell Richard that this house was essentially already yours?
That he could manage it as though it belonged to you and Connor?"
The pause before her answer was the most painful sound I had heard since the funeral.
"I told him you were probably going to leave it to us eventually," she said.
May you like
"I told him you might be more open to it than you were letting on.
I didn't tell him to — I didn't think he would actually—"
