Part 5
The green-handled screwdriver was lying apart from the other tools when I walked into Dad’s garage the next morning. He had divided what remained onto a sheet of plywood: things to keep, things to sell, things to return.
I remembered him using that screwdriver on my cabinet hinges. He wouldn’t let me finish them with a drill because the screws were soft and easy to strip.
He saw the declaration in my hand and sat on an overturned bucket.
“I figured Valerie would show you.”
“Your lawyer sent it to the people investigating this.”
“Curtis didn’t fabricate the page.”
“That isn’t what your statement says.” I put it on the plywood beside the screwdriver. “It says he didn’t know there was a sale. He sent Fenwick my document. He read the disbursements. He asked me to tell the insurer I’d agreed.”
Dad clasped his hands between his knees. “He was frightened.”
“You can’t swear that into a different set of facts.”
He looked across the garage at the bare places on his shelves. “They charge him with this, he loses the business. Nobody lends him money again. He could be locked up.”
“His lawyer can deal with what he’s facing.”
Dad stood so abruptly the bucket rolled against his heel. “Listen to how you say that. Like these are entries in a report.”
I could have reached for dates. I had the scan, the emails, the settlement instructions. Instead I looked at the doorframe behind him, where he’d measured Curtis and me growing up. Each mark had a date beside it, ruled straight with a level. Mine stopped the year I enlisted.
“I know what Curtis did for Mom,” I said. “I remember it without him bringing it out every time I ask about the house.”
Dad’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.
“I remember what you did for me too. Every cabinet. Every Saturday. You still signed the certification.”
He reached down and steadied the bucket with his foot.
“I can correct it. Say he knew there was a sale coming.”
“Not a piece of it, Dad. The truth.”
“What if he doesn’t live through that?”
He asked quietly. The fear was there in the way he held himself, as if a noise outside might be the call he’d been dreading since the voicemail.
“If he threatens to hurt himself, I get help and stay until it comes,” I said. “I can’t guarantee more.”
“He’ll hate you.”
“I expect so.”
A truck passed on the road. Dad watched the open garage door until its sound was gone.
I held out my hand. “I need my key back.”
“The locks are changed.”
“Give it to me anyway.”
He took his ring from his pocket and worked the old key around the split metal. It caught once, and he had to turn it back before it came free. He placed it on my palm.
Valerie had told me his follow-up interview was scheduled for three. I folded my fingers over the key.
“You can correct the record yourself this afternoon. I’m giving them what I know either way.”
“Giving me orders now?”
“I’m telling you what I’ll do.”
I left the declaration on the plywood. Dad stayed beside the bucket, holding the rest of his keys.
From the car I called the storage company and canceled that afternoon’s delivery. My bed frame, mattress, and sealed boxes would stay in the unit. I paid for another three months, nonrefundable.
The confirmation arrived while I waited at a traffic light. I put the phone facedown and drove to the insurer’s lawyer’s office.
There were six of us around the conference table at noon: Bethany and me, our attorneys, and two representatives for the title insurer. Condensation ran down a water pitcher, soaking one edge of the pad beneath it. Nobody reached for a glass.
The proposed settlement depended on further investigation and approval. If the insurer accepted the claim on the terms under discussion, it would pay off Bethany’s lender, restore the equity covered by her policy, and reimburse the documented moving losses included in the agreement. In return, the parties would cooperate in undoing the deed and clearing the lender’s lien.
Bethany needed to remain in the house until the money was secure and she could buy somewhere else. The occupancy document provided up to ninety days.
Valerie turned toward me. “We can seek earlier access through the court. It will cost more, and there’s no promise it gets you inside sooner.”
Bethany kept her eyes on the copy in front of her. I could see a faint mark on her wrist where a watch had been.
“Leave the ninety days,” I said.
One of the insurer’s representatives asked what would happen if payment came earlier.
“I’ll go when I have funds and a place,” Bethany said. “I’m not trying to keep her out.”
Her lawyer laid a hand briefly on her sleeve. She stopped, picked up her pen, and waited while he directed us back to the written provision.
I agreed not to use eviction proceedings as leverage during that period. A separate conditional release protected Bethany from claims I might make based only on her good-faith purchase and occupancy. It did not release Dad, Curtis, Fenwick, or anyone responsible for preparing or accepting the false amendment.
They had used my name to sell the house. I used it now to protect the woman who’d bought it.
Bethany signed the rescission framework only after her lawyer confirmed that it would take effect if the insurer approved the required payment and her lender released its interest. Her pen trembled at first, then moved steadily across the page.
While the others assembled copies, she looked up at me.
“The kitchen window was why I wanted it,” she said. “That flowering tree outside. I imagined it in bloom while I made coffee.”
“Mom picked the crape myrtle.”
Bethany glanced down at the agreement. “It looked like somebody had chosen it carefully.”
She put her copies into a zippered document case. I slid mine into the same sleeve as the genuine power of attorney.
Valerie and I walked to the county offices afterward. In a small interview room, I signed a supplemental statement describing what Curtis had admitted at the shop and the ways Dad’s declaration contradicted it. My earlier account already included the warning I had delayed and the calls I had ignored.
The detective reviewed the last page, then asked me to initial a correction to one time of day. I did, and he placed it behind my first statement.
Dad was in the hall when I came out. Curtis sat opposite him with a defense lawyer, his clean work shirt buttoned to the collar. One boot tapped the floor in short bursts.
Dad held a single page. I saw enough of it when he lifted his hand to recognize a partial correction: Curtis had known a sale was planned, but Dad still claimed his son believed I had approved.
“You gave yours?” Dad asked.
“Yes.”
Curtis’s boot stopped. “What did you tell them about me?”
“What you told me.”
He stood. “You’re doing this after what I did for Mom?”
Dad leaned forward, starting to rise into the space between us. Then he stopped with his palms against his knees.
“Sit,” Curtis’s lawyer said.
Curtis ignored him. “She comes back, blows up everything, then gets to leave again.”
I kept my voice low. “I won’t cover this for you.”
He turned to Dad. The lawyer stood beside him, one hand on the back of the chair, waiting.
Dad looked down at his correction. He gripped the top edge with both hands and tore it. The first pull only split the margin; he pulled harder and separated the page.
The interview-room door opened. The detective called his name.
Dad rose with the torn pieces in one hand. “I need to correct the whole statement,” he said. “Curtis knew she hadn’t consented. We both knew…”
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇