Chapter 8: The Thing About Curtis Briggs
David called back within the hour.
"I looked into Curtis Briggs," he said.
"He's legitimate — development company, commercial real estate, mostly land acquisitions on the edge of town.
But he has a complaint filed against him with the state licensing board from two years ago.
A seller who claimed Briggs misrepresented a title situation to get them to accept a lower offer."
"What happened with the complaint?"
"Settled.
Quietly." A pause.
"Laura, I also made some calls about the judge Rhonda mentioned.
There's no pending motion filed under your address.
Whatever she told you, it wasn't a formal legal action.
Not yet."
"She was bluffing."
"Partly.
She may have spoken to someone informally.
But there's no case on record." He paused again.
"The emails you found — send me all the photographs.
Especially the one from four months before Michael passed.
That one is relevant."
"To what?"
"To establishing that Rhonda had a financial motive and a prior plan to acquire this property.
If she tries to bring any kind of challenge — and she may still try, through Donna's release or through some other angle — those emails show premeditation.
They show she knew about Curtis Briggs.
They show she was coordinating with him while Michael was still alive."
I looked at the photograph on Michael's desk.
The two of us on the porch, the summer after we planted the maple tree.
He was laughing at something off-camera.
I remembered what it was — a neighbor's dog had gotten into the yard and was sitting in the freshly turned soil looking pleased with itself.
"What do I do now?" I asked.
"You wait," David said.
"I'm filing the deed update tomorrow morning.
Once that's recorded, her legal options narrow significantly.
If she tries anything after that, she'll be challenging a recorded deed with no co-signatories and no legal standing.
That's expensive and very unlikely to succeed."
"She said she knows things about Michael.
Things he never told me."
David was quiet for a moment.
"People say things like that when they've run out of real leverage," he said.
"It's meant to make you feel uncertain.
To make you wonder if the ground under you is solid." Another pause.
"Is it?
Do you feel uncertain about Michael?"
I looked at the letter on the desk.
Fourteen pages in Michael's handwriting, the same handwriting that had labeled the envelope with my name.
"No," I said.
"Then let her say it."
The next morning, Rhonda called at seven-fifteen.
I was already awake, sitting on the porch with my coffee, watching the maple tree in the early light.
I answered.
"I want to talk," she said.
"Just the two of us.
No lawyers."
"All right."
"You found emails.
David told me — don't deny it.
I know you found the folder Michael kept."
"I did."
"Then you know I was serious about this.
I've been serious for years." Her voice had changed — the hard edge was still there but something underneath it had shifted.
She sounded, for the first time, tired.
"Curtis was going to pay enough to settle everything.
Donna's share, Patrice's share, mine.
Everyone would have been taken care of."
"Michael didn't want to be taken care of," I said.
"He wanted to keep his promise to me."
"Michael is gone, Laura."
"I know that." My voice stayed even.
"I know that better than anyone in this family."
A long silence.
"What do you want?" Rhonda asked.
"I want what Michael wanted.
I want to stay in this house.
I want the deed filed in my name.
I want this to be finished."
"And the emails?"
"I'll keep them," I said.
"In case they're ever needed."
Another silence.
Longer.
"If I leave this alone," Rhonda said slowly, "you'll leave it alone too?"
"As long as there's nothing left to fight about," I said, "there's nothing to fight about."
She hung up without responding.
But she hung up without threatening me either.
And that, David told me later, was as close to a concession as someone like Rhonda was likely to make.
The deed was recorded the following Thursday.
David called me while I was in the garden, pulling weeds from around the base of the maple tree.
"It's done," he said.
"Filed and recorded.
The property is in your name alone."
I sat back on my heels.
The soil was dark and cool under my hands.
"Thank you, David."
"Michael did most of the work," he said.
"He just needed someone to carry it the last mile."
After I hung up, I stayed in the garden for a while.
The maple tree was full and green above me, the same tree we'd planted wrong the first time and then dug up and planted again, deeper, the right way.
The roots had had twelve years to go down.
My phone buzzed.
The unknown number again.
*Glad it worked out.
— A friend.*
I looked at the message for a moment.
Then I typed back: *Who are you?*
Three dots appeared.
Then: *Someone who loved Michael too.
Maybe I'll tell you someday.*
The dots disappeared.
May you like
No more messages came.
I set the phone down in the grass and looked up through the branches of the maple tree at the sky beyond.
