The silence was absolute.
My father remained with one hand resting on the table.
I stopped reading. Not because I wanted to obey him. Because he had just confessed in front of everyone something that, for three months, I had only been able to piece together through papers.
Theresa looked at him as if she didn’t understand. “You changed what?”
Oliver closed his eyes. “Theresa…”
“What document did you change?”
My mother was no longer yelling. That was worse.
My father collapsed into his chair. I pulled out the next page.
“Sebastian bought the house on Elm Street six months before he died.”
Chloe looked at me. “Dad bought our house?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
Theresa immediately denied it. “That’s impossible. Your father bought that property.”
“No.” I showed her a copy of the original deed. “Sebastian paid the down payment and settled the rest with money from the sale of a stake he had in his family’s company.”
Nathan reached out his hand. “Let me see.”
“Not yet.”
“Emily…”
“For sixteen years you called me a freeloader. You can wait five minutes.”
He fell silent. I turned back to my mother. “Sebastian bought that house thinking of Chloe and me.”
I felt my daughter start to cry.
“Two months before he died, he set up a trust.”
Theresa looked at my father. “Did you know?”
Oliver didn’t answer.
“Did you know?!”
“Yes.”
My mother stepped back.
I read: “‘In the event of the death of Sebastian Hayes, the temporary administration of the property will fall to Oliver Montgomery until Emily Montgomery turns thirty-nine years old or Chloe Hayes Montgomery reaches the age of majority, whichever occurs later.’”
Chloe let out a sound. I had turned thirty-nine four months ago. My daughter had just turned eighteen.
The graduation wasn’t the reason Theresa wanted to kick us out. It was the calendar. The administration period had ended.
“That’s why it’s now,” I said.
My mother turned pale. “What?”
“That’s why you were in such a hurry.” I looked at dad. “The trust ended two weeks ago.”
Nathan gasped. Yvonne covered her mouth.
Theresa pointed at my father. “Tell me this isn’t true.”
Oliver had tears in his eyes. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
My father looked at the folder. “That the house was never ours.”
Theresa sat down. The expression of superiority she had worn all night vanished. “But I have documents.”
“Yes,” I replied. I pulled out another page. “These.”
My father lowered his head.
“After Sebastian’s death, dad brought me several documents to sign.” I looked at him. “I was devastated. I was twenty-three years old. I had a two-year-old daughter. I could barely get out of bed.”
No one said anything.
“He told me it was paperwork for insurance and the estate.”
Dad started crying. “Emily…”
“Among them was an authorization to temporarily manage some assets.”
Theresa frowned. “So?”
“And someone added pages later.” I looked directly at her. “Pages where it looked like I was giving up certain rights.”
“Looked like?”
“My signature is forged.”
“Are you saying Oliver forged documents?”
My father answered before I could. “Yes.”
Theresa turned to him slowly. “What?”
“I did it.”
Nathan stood up. “Dad, shut up.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying.” My father looked at me. “It’s been too long.”
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. “Sebastian came to see me a few weeks before the accident.”
I felt my chest tighten. “Why?”
“He was worried.”
“Why?”
My father looked at Theresa. My mother went rigid. “Oliver.”
“Sebastian had found out I had debts.”
“What debts?” Yvonne asked.
Dad took a breath. “Gambling.”
Nathan let out a nervous laugh. “You never gambled.”
My father didn’t look at him. “Yes, I did.”
Theresa stood up again. “That ended decades ago.”
“No.”
“You swore to me…”
“It never ended.”
My mother froze.
Dad continued: “I owed a lot of money. More than I could pay. Sebastian found out because one of the people I owed tried to track me down through him.”
I could barely speak. “What does that have to do with my house?”
“Sebastian knew that if anything happened to him, you would trust me to manage everything.” My father was crying openly. “And that’s why he created the trust. So that I could help you, but not sell the house, mortgage it, or transfer it.”
I understood. “And you tried to do it.”
Oliver nodded.
Theresa took a step back. “No.”
“I needed money.”
“No.”
“I owed almost $400,000.”
Olivia let out a gasp. Nathan put his hands to his head. “$400,000 seventeen years ago?”
“Yes.”
My father continued: “When Sebastian died, I thought I could get a loan using the house as collateral. But the trust prevented it.”
THE END
