Chapter 4: What Dana Said When She Answered
Dana picked up on the first ring.
"Hey, what's—"
"I need you to come over.
Right now.
Don't ask me anything until you get here."
A beat of silence.
Then: "I'm already getting my keys."
She arrived in nineteen minutes.
I was sitting on the front step when her car pulled up.
The moving truck was still in the driveway.
The two men were leaning against it, waiting.
Colleen had gone inside.
Dana looked at the truck.
She looked at me.
"Start talking."
I told her everything.
The cabinets.
The closet.
The plants.
The way Colleen had flipped every conversation until Ethan was angry at me.
And then what happened today — the document, the signature, the filing date.
Dana didn't say anything until I finished.
Then she said, very quietly: "Do you have a copy of that paper?"
"She took it back."
"Of course she did." Dana stood up.
"Okay.
First thing.
Those movers don't have the legal right to remove your property.
Your name may not be on the deed, but your belongings are yours.
Do you have receipts for any of it?"
"Some.
My laptop.
The dining table — I bought that before we were married."
"Good." She pulled out her phone.
"I'm calling Paul."
Paul was Dana's husband.
He was also a family law attorney.
"Dana, it's the middle of his workday—"
"Brooke." She looked at me.
"Stop worrying about inconveniencing people.
That stopped being appropriate about forty minutes ago."
She stepped away to make the call.
I watched the front door of my house.
Colleen hadn't come back out.
Dana came back two minutes later.
"Paul says the movers cannot legally remove items that belong to you regardless of whose name is on the deed.
Marital property acquired during the marriage is jointly owned in this state.
If Ethan actually filed, you'll be served formally — you don't get notified by his mother waving a paper at you in the driveway."
Something loosened in my chest.
Just slightly.
"So she was bluffing?"
"Paul says the document could be real — Ethan could have filed.
But the way this is being handled?" Dana shook her head.
"This is intimidation, not process.
She's trying to get you to leave voluntarily before you talk to anyone."
I looked at the truck again.
One of the movers had his phone out.
The other was eating something from a paper bag.
"I'm going to go tell them to stop," I said.
"I'll come with you."
We walked over together.
The man with the phone looked up.
"We're going to need you to stop loading," I said.
"Nothing else leaves this property today."
He glanced toward the house.
"The lady inside said—"
"I live here," I said.
"My name is Brooke Callahan.
This is my home.
If you remove anything further without a court order, you'll be participating in the unlawful removal of marital property.
My brother-in-law is a family law attorney and he's available by phone right now if you'd like to speak with him."
The man looked at his partner.
His partner shrugged and folded up the paper bag.
"We're just hired for the day," the first man said.
"We don't want any legal trouble."
"Then you're done for today," Dana said pleasantly.
They didn't argue.
One of them pulled out a phone — presumably to call whoever had hired them.
The front door opened.
Colleen stepped onto the porch.
She looked at the movers.
She looked at Dana.
Then she looked at me.
"Who is this?"
"My sister," I said.
"She's staying for a while."
Colleen's jaw tightened.
It was the first uncontrolled thing I'd seen from her face all day.
"Brooke, I think it would be better if we handled this privately—"
"We are handling it privately," I said.
"Inside the family."
She looked at Dana again.
Dana smiled back at her with the particular warmth of someone who is not warm at all.
"Ethan is going to be very upset," Colleen said.
"Then he can call me," I said.
"My phone's on."
Colleen stood on the porch for a moment longer.
Then she went back inside without another word.
Dana waited until the door closed.
Then she turned to me.
"She didn't know about me," she said.
"She planned this for a day when you'd be alone."
I hadn't thought of it that way until she said it.
But she was right.
Colleen had known my schedule.
May you like
She'd timed it.
This had been planned for longer than two weeks.
