Chapter 7 - THE MONEY I THOUGHT WAS FOR MY PARENTS
I pulled my bank records that night.
Fifty-four thousand dollars.
That was what I had transferred to Mom and Dad over three years.
Not counting medical bills I paid directly.
Not counting repairs.
Not counting groceries during Dad’s recovery.
I had never asked for repayment.
I thought I was making their retirement easier.
Instead, some of that money financed Dileia’s life.
Mom admitted it the next morning.
“Your sister needed help.”
“So did you.”
“We managed.”
“Then why did Dad keep telling me you were short?”
Mom stared at the table.
Because Dileia’s problems never ended.
Credit cards.
Taxes.
A failed online boutique.
Rent.
Car repairs.
Licensing fees.
Each time, Mom and Dad helped.
Then they ran short.
Then they called me.
Money passed from me to my parents to Dileia.
Nobody ever said the last part aloud.
“Why not ask me directly?”
Mom’s answer was immediate.
“Because you would have said no.”
Exactly.
My boundaries had not failed.
They had been bypassed.
I did not demand the $54,000 back.
Not then.
First, I wanted truth.
Patricia helped me separate the duplex issue from the family-support issue.
That mattered.
Dileia’s unauthorized listing was one thing.
My parents’ financial dishonesty was another.
If I mixed them together, everyone would eventually call it a fight about money.
It wasn’t.
It was about consent.
That afternoon, Gretchen called.
“Ranata, did you authorize someone to contact Ben and Yolanda about their lease?”
My heart dropped.
“No.”
Apparently, a man had called the tenants claiming the property might be sold.
He offered them $3,000 to leave early.
“Who?”
“He said he worked with Blue Ridge.”
Curtis.
I called Patricia immediately.
She handled it.
Ben and Yolanda were reassured in writing that their lease remained valid and I had no current plan to sell.
Then Ben said something strange.
“This explains the other guy.”
“What other guy?”
Two months earlier, someone had photographed the exterior and asked Ben whether both units were occupied.
Ben assumed he was from insurance.
He had given him no access.
Gretchen checked camera archives.
We found the footage.
The man was not Curtis.
I zoomed in.
Older.
Gray hair.
Navy jacket.
I knew him.
Dad’s longtime friend, Gerald Price.
The man whose townhouse development had failed.
Gerald had been inspecting my duplex months before Dileia listed it.
And when Patricia searched his business records, she discovered something that made everything worse.
Gerald’s failed development had not merely borrowed from Dad.
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My parents had invested $160,000.
Money they were never supposed to have.
