Chapter 3: What the House Was Worth
"What about the house?" I said.
Casey took a breath.
I heard the baby stir somewhere behind her, then settle.
"Mom, that house — the one you've been visiting for six years — it's not Derek's.
It never was."
I set down my pen.
"What do you mean it's not Derek's?"
"It's mine.
Grandma left it to me when she passed.
You remember — three years before Derek and I even got married.
The deed has my name on it.
Only my name."
I did remember.
My mother had owned that small house on Clover Street since before Casey was born.
When she passed, she'd left it to Casey directly, skipping me entirely because she knew I had my own place.
It had seemed like a sweet, practical decision at the time.
"Casey.
Are you telling me Derek charged me rent on your house?"
"Yes." Her voice had gone flat.
"And that's not all."
I waited.
"He's been telling people — his family, his friends — that the house is his.
That he bought it.
That he's the one providing for us." She paused.
"Mom, he told his mother last Christmas that he paid cash for it.
I was standing right there."
My hand tightened around the phone.
"Does he know you know that?"
"He knows I heard it.
He told me later it was just easier than explaining the whole inheritance thing." She made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh.
"Easier.
That's the word he used."
I stood up from the kitchen table and walked to the window.
The street outside was dark and quiet.
My neighbor's porch light was on.
"Casey, how long has this been going on?"
"The lying to his family?
Since the beginning, I think.
But Mom, the bill — that was the first time he's ever done anything like that to you.
I swear I didn't know he was going to do it.
I was upstairs with the baby and when I came down you were already gone."
"I know, sweetheart."
"I'm so angry I can't even—" She stopped.
"He said it was fair.
When I confronted him after you called, he actually said it was fair.
That everyone who uses the house should contribute."
"He said that."
"Word for word."
I turned away from the window.
"Casey, I need you to do something for me.
Don't tell Derek we had this conversation.
Not yet."
"Mom, what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to make a few calls in the morning," I said.
"And then I'm going to come back."
There was a pause.
"Should I be worried?"
I thought about Derek's face when I'd pushed that money across the table.
That small, satisfied smile.
"Not you," I said.
"Sleep.
Take care of that baby."
I hung up and sat back down at the kitchen table.
The list in front of me — every meal, every load of laundry, every sleepless hour — suddenly looked different.
It wasn't just evidence of what I'd done.
It was the beginning of something else entirely.
I picked up my pen and started a second list.
This one had only one column.
At the top I wrote: *What Derek doesn't know.*
By the time I went to bed, there were seven items on it.
And the seventh one — the one I'd almost forgotten until Casey mentioned the deed — changed the value of everything above it.
Because six years ago, when Casey first brought Derek home, I had done something quietly and without any fuss.
I had paid off the remaining mortgage on that house.
Every last cent.
As a gift to my daughter.
In my name, through my bank, with a paper trail that still existed in a folder in my filing cabinet.
Derek had been charging me rent on a house I had helped own free and clear.
May you like
I turned off the kitchen light.
Tomorrow was going to be a very different kind of day.
