Then toward him.
“She transferred it.”
Silence.
“The house?”
“Yes.”
“To who?”
His wife closed her eyes.
The father already knew.
Still he asked.
“To who?”
“Your daughter.”
He stared.
The home around him suddenly felt unreal.
The hardwood.
The staircase.
The framed wedding photograph.
The sofa they chose together.
The kitchen they remodeled eighteen months earlier.
This had been his mother’s house.
She bought it twenty-two years ago.
When she grew ill, the father moved her into a smaller accessible apartment and purchased the house from her—or thought he had.
But the paperwork had always been strange.
His mother insisted on keeping part ownership “for estate reasons.”
His accountant handled transfers.
The father never questioned it.
Then she died.
He assumed remaining ownership passed to him.
The stepmother whispered:
“Your mother signed a transfer before she died.”
“To my daughter?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
She looked away.
“How?”
“I saw a copy.”
“Where?”
“In probate documents.”
The father stared at her.
“I never saw that.”
“Because the attorney sent it to the wrong email.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I found it.”
“Where?”
She hesitated.
The father’s stomach turned.
“In my email?”
She said nothing.
“You went through my email?”
“I had your password.”
“I gave it to you for our mortgage account.”
“I was looking for tax paperwork.”
“You were looking for my mother’s estate.”
His wife began crying harder.
“It was supposed to be our home.”
The father looked around.
“No.”
He shook his head.
“It was supposed to be whoever my mother legally left it to.”
“She left everything to that girl.”
The phrase struck him.
That girl.
His daughter.
Not our daughter.
Not your daughter.
That girl.
His wife continued:
“My son got nothing.”
“Your son was not my mother’s grandchild.”
“He lived with her.”
“For three years.”
“She called him family.”
“She did.”
“Then why nothing?”
The father stared.
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly.”