Chapter 7 - THE AUNT MY MOTHER ERASED
Rebecca Hart did not sell Rita anything.
That was another lie.
She had never met Rita.
Daniel and I drove to Portsmouth three days later.
Rebecca lived in a gray house overlooking the harbor.
The woman who opened the door had my mother’s eyes.
I knew before she said a word.
“You’re Sarah.”
I stared at her.
“You knew me?”
“From photographs.”
That hurt almost as much as discovering she existed.
Inside, Rebecca showed me letters.
My mother had written to her for years.
Then stopped shortly before marrying my father.
“What happened?”
Rebecca smiled sadly.
“Our father was controlling. Your mother escaped. I stayed.”
Their estrangement had nothing to do with me.
By the time my grandparents died, too much resentment had hardened.
Rebecca never challenged anything.
Never asked for money.
And never sold a claim to Rita.
Then she showed me the original trust copy my mother had mailed her decades earlier.
Rebecca was listed as contingent beneficiary only if my mother and I both died.
She had no current ownership.
Rita had fabricated another legal threat.
“Why would Victor believe she could take half?” I asked.
Rebecca looked at me carefully.
“Because perhaps he wanted you to believe it.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Victor had used imaginary danger to pressure me before.
Investments that had to happen immediately.
Business crises only he understood.
Tax deadlines that somehow required my signature.
How many times had I signed because he made hesitation feel dangerous?
Rebecca reached into a desk.
“There’s something else.”
An envelope.
My name.
My mother’s handwriting.
She had left it with Rebecca after my wedding.
If Sarah ever believes Brookline belongs to anyone except her, give her this.
My hands trembled.
Inside was a letter.
Sarah,
Your father and I placed the house in the Bennett Family Trust because we worried Victor saw security as something he could eventually control. I hope we are wrong.
I stopped reading.
Rebecca whispered:
“She didn’t hate him.”
“She just didn’t trust him.”
“No.”
I kept reading.
Under no circumstances can a spouse receive title without Sarah’s notarized consent before two independent trustees.
Daniel leaned over.
Victor’s forged deed had only one notary.
Rita.
No independent trustees.
It was legally useless even before proving forgery.
My parents had protected me from a future they feared twenty-two years earlier.
Then I reached the final paragraph.
Victor knows about this restriction. Your father explained it to him before the wedding.
I stared at the page.
Victor had known from the beginning he could never legally take my house through marriage.
Which meant every forged document had been created despite knowing it could fail.
Unless the real goal was not ownership.
Daniel looked at me.
“Sarah.”
I already understood.
“If he couldn’t legally transfer Brookline…”
Daniel nodded.
“Then he may have been trying to create enough fake paperwork to sell it to someone who didn’t know better.”
And according to county records, someone had already paid Victor a deposit.
May you like
Eight hundred thousand dollars.
For my house.
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