Chapter 8: The Claim Against the House
I closed the hallway door behind me and stood in the cold of the front porch.
"Say that again," I said.
Patricia Ellison's voice was measured, professional, the kind of calm that comes from delivering difficult information regularly.
"Eighteen months ago, a claim was filed against your father's estate by a party alleging a prior financial agreement with your father — a loan, they claim, that was never repaid, secured against the family property.
The claim has been working through a preliminary process.
Your mother was listed as a respondent but the correspondence was sent to an old address.
She may never have received it."
"Who filed the claim?"
A brief pause.
"A man named Gerald Pitt.
He states he was a business partner of your father's in the early 1990s."
I had never heard that name in my life.
"My father didn't have a business partner."
"That is, of course, the central question.
Mr.
Pitt has produced documents.
Whether those documents are genuine is what the process will determine.
But I need to be direct with you — the preliminary hearing is in eleven days.
If your mother does not respond and appear, the claim may proceed by default."
I pressed my hand flat against the porch railing.
"How did you get my number?"
"Your mother listed you as an emergency contact on a community center form from several years ago.
It was the only current contact information I could locate.
I apologize for the unconventional approach."
"Don't apologize," I said.
"Thank you."
I went back inside.
I stood in the kitchen doorway.
Mom was laughing at something Richard had said, her hand on the counter, her head tilted back the way she used to laugh before Dad d*ed, full and unguarded.
I waited.
When the moment passed, I said: "Mom.
I need to show you something.
Just us, for a minute."
She read the solicitor's name I'd written on my phone's notepad.
The claim details.
The eleven days.
She sat down at the kitchen table.
"Gerald Pitt," she said.
"You know him?"
"Your father mentioned him once.
A long time ago.
They had some kind of falling out over a project that never went anywhere.
I didn't know the details.
Your father didn't like to bring work trouble home." She looked at the name again.
"I assumed it was finished."
"Apparently not."
"He's claiming the house."
"He's claiming there's a debt secured against it.
If the documents hold up—"
"They won't," Mom said.
Her voice was very flat.
"Because your father would never have signed something like that without telling me.
We owned this house together.
He wasn't that kind of man."
"I know that.
But we need a solicitor.
We need to respond before the hearing."
Richard appeared in the doorway.
He'd heard enough.
"What's happened?" he said.
Mom looked at him.
Then she made a decision I saw cross her face clearly.
"Sit down," she said.
"Both of you.
I'm not going to have two separate conversations about the same problem."
She told him everything.
Richard listened without interrupting, the same way he'd listened to Diane the day before.
When she finished, he said:
"Do you still have your father's papers?
From that period.
The nineties."
"In the attic," I said.
"In boxes.
I don't know what's up there exactly."
"Then that's where we start." He stood up.
"Do you have a torch?"
"Richard, it's Sunday evening—"
"The hearing is in eleven days," he said.
"I'd rather spend Sunday evening in an attic than spend the next ten days worrying about what might be in one."
Mom looked at him for a moment.
"Second drawer," she said.
"The torch."
He found it.
He went upstairs.
I followed.
We spent two hours in that attic.
Chloe came up after an hour and helped without being asked.
Diane sat with Thomas downstairs and kept Mom company and didn't ask questions, which was exactly the right thing to do.
At nine forty-seven, Richard pulled a manila folder from the bottom of a box labeled *ACCOUNTS 1991–1995.*
He opened it.
He read it.
He came to the top of the attic stairs and called down.
May you like
"Helen.
I think you need to come up here."
