Chapter 4: The Woman in Durham
"Who is she?" I asked.
Diane kept her eyes on the window.
"Diane.
Who is she?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
I set the affidavit on the table and slid it toward her until it touched her hand.
She looked down at it the way someone looks at something they have been dreading for a long time.
"Her name is on a legal document connected to my house," I said.
"She claims she has lived here and contributed to this property.
I have never seen this woman in my life.
And you will not look at me."
Diane picked up the affidavit.
She read it slowly, or pretended to.
Then she set it back down.
"Ethan may have had a friend staying here occasionally.
I don't know the details."
"A friend."
"I'm not his keeper."
"You drove four hours with six suitcases to keep an eye on me while he was away," I said.
"But you don't know the details."
Daniel stepped back slightly.
He was giving me the room.
"How long have you known about her?" I asked.
Diane's jaw tightened.
"I told you, I don't—"
"How long?"
The silence stretched.
Outside, a car passed on the road.
The pot roast was still in the oven.
I could smell it from the hallway.
"A year," Diane said finally.
Her voice was flat.
"Approximately."
The word hit me somewhere behind the sternum.
I did not move.
"A year," I repeated.
"Ethan told me it was complicated.
That things between you two had become—" She paused.
"Distant."
"We had dinner together last week.
We went to his cousin's wedding in April.
We are not distant."
"I only know what he told me."
"And what did he tell you about my house?"
Diane set her phone down on the table beside the affidavit.
Her composure had not broken, but something underneath it had shifted.
She looked tired in a way she hadn't when she was standing over my bed that morning.
"He said you had always kept things separate," she said.
"That you never really merged your lives the way a married couple should.
That you held the property over him."
"I held nothing over him.
He told me not to add his name to the deed.
Those were his exact words."
"He says differently now."
"Then he's lying."
Diane's eyes finally came back to mine.
"He's my son."
"I know he is." I picked up the affidavit.
"And this woman filed a legal claim on my property alongside him.
So I need you to understand something, Diane.
Whatever Ethan told you about this house, about me, about our marriage — he told you those things while this was already in motion.
He used you.
He sent you here to manage me while he was somewhere else, doing something else, and he didn't tell you enough of the truth to protect yourself either."
Something moved in her face.
Not agreement.
But not the certainty that had been there all morning.
Her phone lit up on the table.
Ethan's name on the screen.
She reached for it.
I put my hand on her wrist — not hard, just enough.
"Put it on speaker," I said.
Diane looked at me for a long moment.
Then she answered the call and set the phone on the table between us.
"Mom?" Ethan's voice filled the hallway.
"Is everything okay?
I've been trying to reach you."
Diane opened her mouth.
I shook my head once.
She said: "I'm here.
Ava is here too.
And her attorney."
Three seconds of silence.
"Her attorney," Ethan said.
"Yes," I said.
"Hello, Ethan."
Another silence.
Longer this time.
When he spoke again, his voice had changed.
The warmth was gone.
What replaced it was something careful and measured, the voice of someone deciding very quickly what to say next.
"Ava, I can explain everything.
May you like
Just — don't do anything yet.
I'm coming home."
