My father cracked the door open.
Only a few inches.
His face appeared behind the chain.
“She told us to handle things while she was gone.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You left!”
“I deployed.”
“You abandoned your responsibilities!”
I stared at him.
“What responsibilities?”
He didn’t answer.
Sheriff Cole was flipping through the folder now.
Bank statements.
Loan applications.
Property records.
Then he stopped on one page.
“Rachel, who is Evelyn Hayes?”
“My grandmother.”
“Deceased?”
“Five years ago.”
“Did she own property on Cedar Ridge Road?”
My heart stopped.
“Yes.”
Grandma Rose—Evelyn Rose Hayes legally—had owned a small blue cottage about twenty minutes outside town.
When she died, she left it to me.
Dad never forgave her.
He believed the house should have gone to him.
I had been nineteen.
He reminded me constantly that I was “too young to deserve property.”
Eventually I enlisted.
The house remained in my name.
Or at least I thought it did.
Sheriff Cole looked up.
“This deed says ownership was transferred two years ago.”
“To who?”
He hesitated.
“Your father.”
The neighborhood erupted.
I barely heard it.
I walked toward Dad.
“You stole Grandma’s house?”
He opened the door wider.
“You weren’t using it.”
“That doesn’t make it yours.”
“You disappeared!”
“I was serving overseas!”
Mom’s voice came from behind him.
“You always cared more about strangers than this family.”
I looked at her.
