Chapter 5: Three Sisters at the Table
They arrived together, which I had expected.
Rhonda came first through the door, the same thick folder under her arm, her chin at the same angle it had been every time she'd looked at me across this threshold.
Patrice came in behind her, quieter, her eyes moving around the room the way someone's eyes move when they haven't been somewhere in a long time and are trying to remember it.
Donna came last.
She didn't look at me at all.
David was already seated at the dining room table.
He stood when they came in, introduced himself, and gestured to the chairs across from him.
Rhonda looked at him.
Then at me.
"I thought this was going to be a family conversation."
"It is," I said.
"David is here to make sure everyone understands what's being said.
Please sit down."
Rhonda sat.
Patrice sat beside her.
Donna took the chair at the far end and folded her hands on the table and studied them.
"All right," Rhonda said.
"Let's be honest with each other.
The deed has all four names on it.
Donna never released her share.
That means the property can't legally belong to Laura alone.
We're not trying to be cruel.
We're trying to resolve a legal reality."
"That's one way to describe it," David said pleasantly.
He opened his briefcase and set a folder on the table.
"I'd like to share a few documents before we go further."
Rhonda's eyes went to the folder.
"What is that?"
"The first document," David said, "is a receipt.
It shows a payment of forty-two thousand dollars made by Michael Calloway to Rhonda Calloway fourteen years ago, in exchange for a signed release of her ownership interest in this property." He slid the receipt across the table.
"You signed it, Rhonda.
Your signature is on page two."
Rhonda's jaw tightened.
"That was a loan.
Michael called it a buyout but we had an understanding —"
"The document you signed calls it a release," David said.
"Not a loan.
There is no promissory note.
There is no repayment schedule.
There is no language anywhere in that document that describes it as anything other than a permanent transfer of your ownership interest." He paused.
"Your lawyer, when you spoke to him, did he see this receipt?"
A beat of silence.
"He saw what I showed him," Rhonda said.
David nodded as if that answered the question, which it did.
"The second document," he continued, "is a sworn affidavit prepared by Gerald Fitch, who was Michael's attorney for over twenty years.
In this affidavit, Mr.
Fitch describes a conversation he had with Michael eight months ago, in which Michael explained that Rhonda had approached Donna in the weeks after their father's passing and persuaded her not to sign the release — telling Donna that if she held on to her share, the two of them could eventually force a sale and split the proceeds."
The room went very quiet.
Patrice turned her head slowly toward Rhonda.
Rhonda didn't move.
"That's not —" she started.
"Donna." David's voice was gentle.
He looked down the table at her.
"Is that what happened?"
Donna's hands were still folded on the table.
She looked at them for a long moment.
Then she looked up at me.
"Michael came to me," she said.
"After Rhonda talked to me.
He asked me to sign.
He explained everything.
I told him I needed to think about it." She stopped.
"Rhonda called me that same night and told me not to sign.
She said if I waited long enough, Laura would eventually leave and the house would come back to the family."
"Donna," Rhonda said sharply.
"She told me Laura wasn't the right fit for Michael anyway." Donna's voice was flat, factual, as if she were reading from a document of her own.
"She said it wouldn't last."
I looked at the table.
Michael's table.
The one we'd found at an estate sale and refinished ourselves over a long weekend, paint on our hands for days afterward.
"Donna," Rhonda said again.
Her voice had dropped into something lower and harder.
"Don't do this."
"I've been doing it for twelve years," Donna said.
"I'm tired."
She reached into her bag and set a single folded page on the table.
"I had my own lawyer draw that up last week," she said.
"It's a release.
May you like
My share, transferred to Laura.
Notarized yesterday morning."
