“My mother said—”
“That’s part of the problem,” I said.
He stopped.
“For seven years, every time something went wrong, you let your mother tell you what to think. What to do. What I should have to accept. And when she decided my father’s house was something you deserved, you listened.”
“You make it sound like I was stealing from you.”
I didn’t raise my voice.
“You were trying to take something that wasn’t yours. Maybe you called it marriage. Maybe you called it fair. But you were making decisions about my property behind my back.”
“I thought it was ours.”
“You never once asked me,” I said.
That stopped him cold.
Because he knew I was right.
A few days later, after the escrow money had been returned to the buyer in Marietta, Daniel asked me to sit down with him at the kitchen table.
“Claire. There’s something I have to tell you.”
I waited.
“I have debts.”
I’d already suspected.
“How much?”
He hesitated.
“More than you know.”
“How much, Daniel?”
He told me.
Two hundred and thirty-eight thousand dollars.
Credit cards. A personal loan. A line of credit against his retirement account. Two years of sports betting on his phone that started small and kept getting bigger.
I sat there in shock.
And suddenly, everything made sense.
The late-night phone calls in the garage. The questions about the deed. Patricia’s pressure. The rush. Being willing to sell a three-million-dollar house for eight hundred and fifty thousand. Just to get it done fast.
“You were going to use the money to pay your debts.”
He nodded.
“Some of it.”
“And my father’s house was the easiest way to get it.”
He didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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