The keys to my mother’s house weren’t lost. They were being used against me by someone sleeping under my own roof.
I went back to bed. I lay down beside him when he came in. And I began, in the quiet of my own head, to plan.
They thought they had stolen my mother’s house. That night, one thing became painfully clear: my husband and his sister had a plan. I just didn’t know what it was yet — and they had no idea I was about to start looking.
« I need the locks changed by tonight. »
****
The next morning, I drove back to the lake house before sunrise. My hands were steady on the wheel in a way that surprised me.
I walked through the wreckage with my phone out and photographed everything. The champagne stains on the ceiling. The cigarette burn on my mother’s armrest. Every ring on every table.
