Chapter 5: The Name on the Deed
Mrs.
Bennett didn't look surprised to see me.
She looked at my face, moved back from the door, and said, "Come in.
Close it behind you."
I sat down on the same couch as before.
My hands were steady but my voice wasn't entirely.
"Tiffany just told me to ask you who owns the lot my house is built on."
Mrs.
Bennett set her pen down on the legal pad.
"What exactly did she say?"
I repeated it word for word.
Mrs.
Bennett listened without moving.
When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.
Then she rolled to the second bookshelf, pulled out a dark green binder, and brought it to the desk.
"This is the original subdivision record for Clover Lane," she said.
"Filed in 1962.
Gerald acquired several parcels in this neighborhood between 1965 and 1978." She opened the binder and turned it toward me.
"Your lot is not one of them."
I looked at the page.
Property lines, parcel numbers, names in faded typeface.
"So she lied," I said.
"She guessed," Mrs.
Bennett said.
"She thought if she could make you afraid of me, you would stop asking questions." She closed the binder.
"It is a tactic.
It works on people who don't know how to verify things."
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
"Why would she do that now?
She's already in trouble."
"Because she is frightened," Mrs.
Bennett said simply.
"And frightened people try to break apart whatever is standing against them.
She cannot touch me legally.
So she came for you."
I thought about Mason.
About the way Tiffany had stood there watching me walk out of this house, timing it, waiting.
"She's going to keep doing this," I said.
"Probably." Mrs.
Bennett folded her hands.
"Until she can't."
That afternoon, I picked Mason up from school.
He was quiet in the car, looking out the window.
"Did something happen today?" I asked.
"Tyler said his mom told him that Mrs.
Bennett is a bad person who takes people's houses."
I kept my eyes on the road.
"Tyler's mom doesn't know Mrs.
Bennett."
"I told him that." Mason turned to look at me.
"Mom, is Mrs.
Bennett going to be okay?
Like, is Tiffany going to do something to her?"
"Mrs.
Bennett can handle herself," I said.
"She's been handling herself for a long time."
Mason was quiet again.
Then: "Can we fix the ramp?"
I glanced at him.
"I still have Dad's lumber," he said.
"There's enough.
I measured it this morning before school."
Something tightened in my throat.
"Yeah," I said.
"We can fix the ramp."
We started that evening.
Mason laid out the boards on the grass with the same care he'd used the first time, checking each one against his original measurements, which he'd written in a small notebook he kept in his back pocket.
I held pieces steady while he worked.
We didn't talk much.
We didn't need to.
Mrs.
Bennett's porch light came on at some point.
I looked up and she was in her doorway, watching.
She didn't say anything either.
When we finished, Mason stood back and looked at it.
It was straighter than the first one.
He'd reinforced the railings with an extra bracket on each side.
"Dad would've said to add those brackets the first time," Mason said.
"He would've," I agreed.
Mason picked up his tools and started putting them away.
Then he stopped.
Tiffany's car was in her driveway.
Her kitchen light was on.
And she was standing at her window, looking out at us.
Mason looked at the ramp.
Then at the window.
Then back at the ramp.
"Let her look," he said.
He said it the way his father used to say things.
Quietly, without anger, like a fact that didn't need defending.
I put my arm around his shoulders and we went inside.
May you like
But that night, at eleven-forty, my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
*Tell the old woman to drop it or this gets worse for everyone on this street.*
