Chapter 7
“No secrets.”
He began crying.
That night, we ordered a rush DNA test.
Not because I doubted the result.
Because after a year of poison, I wanted Marlo’s voice permanently removed from my husband’s head.
Two mornings later, Mom called.
She sounded terrified.
“I need you to come over.”
“What happened?”
“I went through your father’s things.”
My chest tightened.
“And?”
“I found something.”
“What?”
A long silence.
Then she whispered:
“Something worse than the money.”
I drove to her house alone.
Mom was sitting at the dining table surrounded by boxes.
Dad’s boxes.
Legal files.
Photographs.
Medical documents.
In front of her sat a yellow envelope.
“I found it inside the lining of his old briefcase.”
She pushed it toward me.
On the front, Dad had written:
For Evelyn.
If something happens before I can fix this.
Evelyn was Mom.
Inside were three items.
A notarized document.
A flash drive.
And a handwritten letter.
Mom had already read the letter.
Her hands trembled.
I unfolded it.
Dad’s handwriting was shaky.
But unquestionably his.
Evie,
If you are reading this, I didn’t get enough time.
Marlo has been taking money.
My stomach tightened.
Dad wrote that Marlo had gained access to his online accounts by claiming she was helping with medical bills.
At first, he trusted her.
Then he discovered withdrawals he had never approved.
When he confronted her, she told him the money was repayment.
Repayment for what, he didn’t explain.
But one sentence had been underlined twice.
I am frightened by how angry she becomes when I ask her about the house.
Mom began crying beside me.
I kept reading.
Dad suspected she intended to transfer the property.
So he had gone to his attorney.
The notarized document in the envelope confirmed it.
Six months before the quitclaim deed Marlo later recorded, Dad had placed the house into an
irrevocable family trust
.
Marlo’s deed was worthless.
Dad hadn’t owned the house individually when she transferred it.
I stared at Mom.
“She forged a deed for property he didn’t even own anymore.”
Mom nodded.
But she looked sick.
“There’s more.”
The trust named three beneficiaries.
Mom could live there for the rest of her life.
After her death, the house would be sold.
Half the proceeds would go to me.
The other half—
I stopped breathing.
—would go into an education trust for Ren.
Dad had created it before she was born.