Chapter 7: The Morning After
The house was quiet when David's mother came downstairs at half past six.
She had not slept well — not from distress, exactly, but from the particular restlessness of a mind that has been running hard for hours and does not know how to stop.
She had lain in the dark and listened to the house settle around her.
The familiar sounds.
The third stair that always creaked.
The way the kitchen pipes knocked once before the hot water came through.
Sounds she had stopped noticing years ago and had been noticing again, deliberately, since the photographs appeared on Richard's phone.
She made coffee.
She stood at the kitchen window and watched the light come up over the back garden — the garden Thomas had planted, the apple tree he had staked himself the spring before he got sick, the low stone wall he had rebuilt one summer weekend because he said the original mortar was wrong and it bothered him to look at it.
David came down at seven.
He looked like he hadn't slept at all.
He sat at the kitchen table without speaking and she put a cup in front of him and sat across from him and they were quiet together for a while in the way that people are quiet when there is too much to say and no good place to start.
"Richard called me this morning," David said finally.
"Early.
He spoke to a colleague who handles property fr@ud cases."
"What did she say?"
"That the documentation Lauren provided to Foss — the letter of authorization — constitutes fr@ud by false representation.
That's a crjminal matter, not just a civil one." He wrapped both hands around his cup.
"Marcus's involvement through the company makes it a conspiracy charge, potentially."
His mother was quiet.
"She also said the buyers have grounds to pursue damages against Foss's brokerage for proceeding without proper verification.
Foss is going to be in trouble regardless of what happens to Lauren."
"That's not his fault," she said.
"He was deceived."
"Richard's colleague said the same thing.
She said Foss has been cooperative and that cooperation will matter." He paused.
"Lauren has not been cooperative."
She looked at her son.
The tiredness in his face was not just last night's tiredness.
It was older than that.
"David," she said.
"How long have you known something was wrong?"
He didn't answer immediately.
"Not this," he said.
"I didn't know about this.
But I knew—" He stopped.
Started again.
"I knew she resented the house.
I thought it was about me.
About the time I spent here.
I kept trying to find a middle ground." He shook his head.
"I told her once, maybe two years ago, that if you ever decided to downsize, I'd help you look.
I meant it as a kindness to her.
To show her I wasn't choosing the house over our life together."
"She heard something different."
"She heard a timeline," he said.
"She heard a plan she could accelerate."
His mother reached across the table and put her hand over his.
He looked down at it — her hand, the kitchen table, the same table where he had done homework as a child, where Thomas had read the Sunday paper, where she had sat alone with a calculator eight months after the funeral.
"I should have told you about the mortgage," she said.
"Mum—"
"No.
I should have.
Not because you had a right to manage my finances — you didn't, and you don't.
But because you were my son and you were grieving and I was grieving and we should have been doing that together instead of separately." She paused.
"I was trying to protect you.
I think I was also protecting myself from having to say out loud that I was struggling."
David's hand turned over under hers and held on.
"Is it current now?" he asked.
"The mortgage."
"Yes.
Has been for fourteen months."
"Good." He was quiet for a moment.
"I'm going to call a solicitor today.
Not Richard — someone who handles this kind of case specifically.
I want to make sure you're protected.
I want to make sure there's nothing Lauren or Marcus can do to complicate the title."
"Richard already suggested someone.
He texted me this morning."
David almost smiled.
"Of course he did."
Outside, the apple tree moved slightly in the early wind.
A bird landed on the stone wall and then left again.
"What are you going to do?" his mother asked.
"About Lauren."
He was quiet for a long time.
"I don't know yet," he said.
"I know what last night looked like.
I know what the charges look like.
I know what Richard's colleague said." He looked up.
"But I also know I have to decide what I believe about seven years.
And I can't do that this morning."
She nodded.
That was honest.
That was the right answer.
"She's going to fight," he said.
"Whatever happens legally, she's going to fight.
I know how she operates."
"Let her," his mother said.
"This house has been standing for sixty years.
It will still be standing when she's done."
He looked at her.
May you like
"Drink your coffee," she said.
"Richard's colleague calls at nine."
