Chapter 7 - WHY JASON WANTED TYLER AWAY
I remembered the conversation perfectly.
“Let Tyler stay with us Saturday,” Jason had said. “Paige misses him.”
Paige was his ten-year-old daughter.
It sounded normal.
I almost said yes.
Then Mom had a rough night and I kept Tyler home.
Now the timing looked different.
Jason knew Tyler had seen him entering Mom’s room.
Was he trying to frighten him?
Question him?
Simply get him out of the house?
We did not speculate beyond evidence.
But when investigators asked Tyler whether Jason ever talked about the night, Tyler nodded.
“He said I misunderstood.”
“What did he say you misunderstood?”
“That Grandma asked for medicine.”
“Did she?”
Tyler shook his head.
Then:
“He said if I kept spying, Mom would stop trusting me.”
My heart broke.
Not a threat exactly.
Worse.
Jason attacked the one thing Tyler cared about—
whether I believed him.
I crouched in front of my son that evening.
“I need you to hear something.”
He looked nervous.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I followed Uncle Jason.”
“You were scared.”
“He said spying is bad.”
“Sometimes watching someone secretly is wrong.”
Tyler’s face fell.
I continued.
“But telling a safe adult when somebody may be getting hurt is always okay.”
“Even if it’s family?”
“Especially then.”
He thought.
“Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
Immediate.
Always.
Then his shoulders finally relaxed.
That night, he slept in his own bed.
I stood outside his room at 2 a.m. checking on him.
Irony.
Apparently trauma travels.
I started therapy the following week.
Not because I was falling apart.
Because I didn’t want fear to become the new person running our house.
Then Jason’s wife Lauren made a difficult decision.
She separated from him.
Not because I asked.
Because she discovered her own name had been used too.
Jason had taken out a business credit card using a household income figure that included Lauren’s salary.
Technically common on some applications.
But he listed her as financially aware when she was not.
More hidden debt.
She moved with Paige into an apartment.
Paige cried every night.
Tyler cried because Paige cried.
The children were paying emotional bills they never created.
So Lauren and I made one rule:
No using the children as messengers.
No asking what Jason said.
No making them choose sides.
They could love everyone.
The adults would handle the consequences.
Then Lauren found a storage box.
Inside were Jason’s Cedar Ridge papers.
Property estimates.
Loan agreements.
And a handwritten page titled:
MOM OPTIONS.
Sell rental.
Borrow against investments.
Advance inheritance.
Change beneficiary.
My hands went cold.
Then I saw another line:
If Mom refuses, medical incapacity may solve signature issue.
Jason had already insisted in messages that Mom was competent.
But privately, he had written a backup plan based on claiming she wasn’t.
Then under that:
Need Elaine to document confusion.
Elaine.
I had no idea who Elaine was.
May you like
Mom did.
She worked at the cardiology clinic.
