Chapter 5 - THE MAN WHO BOUGHT THE LAND
My grandmother had kept secrets too.
Apparently, secrecy was the family inheritance nobody bothered listing in the trust.
Thomas arrived at my house that afternoon.
Alive.
Very much alive.
Sixty-eight years old.
Silver hair.
Same crooked smile I remembered from childhood.
I stood in the doorway staring at a man I had mourned.
“Hi, Evie.”
Nobody had called me that since Grandma died.
I slapped him.
Hard.
He accepted it.
“That was fair.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I know.”
“For twenty-four years.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
He looked past me at Dad.
“Ask him.”
I turned.
My father looked furious.
Thomas stepped inside.
Nora watched him with enormous eyes.
“Are you really Mom’s uncle?”
He smiled.
“Apparently I’m the zombie uncle.”
Despite everything, Nora smiled.
Dad did not.
“Get out.”
Thomas looked at him.
“You don’t get to order anyone out of Evelyn’s house.”
My father clenched his jaw.
Thomas placed a folder on the table.
Inside were bank records dating back thirty years.
The land beneath my house had been purchased when I was six.
Not by Grandma.
Not by Dad.
By someone named James Keller.
I frowned.
“Who is he?”
Mom started crying again.
Dad looked toward the window.
Thomas answered:
“Your biological father.”
The room disappeared.
I heard Nora whisper:
“What?”
I looked at my mother.
She covered her face.
“No.”
My voice came out strangely.
“No.”
Thomas continued softly.
“Robert raised you. That matters. But he isn’t your biological father.”
I stared at Dad.
The man who spent my entire life measuring me against Chloe.
He said nothing.
“How long have you known?”
“Since before you were born.”
I almost laughed.
Of course.
“What happened to James?”
Mom finally spoke.
“He died when you were seven.”
My chest tightened.
“How?”
“Construction accident.”
“Did I know him?”
She nodded.
“You called him Uncle Jamie.”
A memory surfaced.
A tall man bringing me a red bicycle.
Laughing when I fell into the grass.
I had been told he was a family friend.
My knees went weak.
Thomas continued.
“James knew he was sick before the accident.”
“Sick?”
“Heart condition. The accident killed him, but he had already started planning for you.”
He bought the land.
Created an account.
Asked Grandma to protect both until I was old enough.
“Why didn’t he leave it to Mom?”
Thomas looked at Eleanor.
“She was married to Robert.”
I understood.
He didn’t trust my father.
Dad snapped:
“James was irresponsible.”
Thomas laughed bitterly.
“He was responsible enough to buy your daughter a home you later mortgaged.”
Dad stepped forward.
Thomas didn’t move.
“You disappeared after trying to destroy this family.”
“No. I left because you threatened to have me arrested.”
“For theft.”
“For discovering yours.”
Silence.
Thomas opened another document.
Thirty years earlier, Dad had borrowed from James’s account after his death.
Then again.
Then again.
College fund.
Land equity.
Insurance proceeds.
All money intended for me.
I stared at the totals.
$187,000 before interest.
My entire body went cold.
“You stole from me.”
Dad slammed his fist down.
“I raised you!”
“That does not make my inheritance yours!”
“I fed you. Housed you. Paid for everything.”
Thomas’s voice became sharp.
“With her own money.”
Dad turned.
Thomas continued:
“That’s the part you never told her.”
Mom cried harder.
I looked at her.
“What does he mean?”
She whispered:
“Some household expenses came from the trust.”
I closed my eyes.
My father had spent decades reminding me that I owed him for everything he had done.
While he used money left for me to do it.
Then Thomas placed one final document on the table.
“This is why Robert needs the house transferred now.”
It was a letter from his attorney.
A court petition had been prepared.
Thomas was seeking an accounting of the original trust.
If the house remained in my name, Dad’s old transactions could be traced through the property records.
If I transferred it to Chloe before the petition was filed, the paper trail became far more complicated.
I looked at my father.
“You weren’t giving Chloe a graduation present.”
He said nothing.
“You were using her to hide what you did.”
And Chloe began to cry.
May you like
Because for the first time, she realized she had never been the favorite.
She had been the cover.
