Monday morning, Brittany marched into the kitchen with her phone raised, ready to film my surrender. I set my teacup down and slid a cream envelope across the table instead. “Open it,” I said gently. She laughed, tore it open, and her smile began to slip. The first page was a thirty day notice to vacate, signed by my attorney, Frank Delaney. Douglas read over her shoulder, and the color left his face.
“You can’t do this,” Brittany shrieked. “Douglas inherits this house!” I told her to read the second page. It was the deed, with a single name on it: mine. Then the doorbell rang. Through the glass I saw Mr. Delaney, a real estate agent holding a clipboard, and a photographer aiming a camera at my front lawn. Brittany whispered, “Who are they?”
What Brittany never knew was that I had called Mr. Delaney the very night she threw that rental agreement on my table. He confirmed that Arthur had placed the house solely in my name before he died, and that Douglas and Brittany were guests with no lease and no legal claim. He advised a thirty day notice and a sale. The house was worth nearly nine hundred thousand dollars, and a buyer was already waiting. Brittany ignored the notice, and five weeks later the sign went up on the lawn, and her scream echoed down the street.
The evening the sign went up, Douglas found me in the garden and finally spoke. He admitted he had been terrified, because he had hidden forty-seven thousand dollars of credit card debt, and Brittany threatened to leave him if he ever sided with me. He also confessed she had toured a care facility and asked an agent how fast the house could be sold if I were moved out. I told him I still loved him, but love was not a lease.
Brittany moved to her mother’s house within days, and the home sold to a young couple for eight hundred ninety thousand dollars. Mrs. Pruitt next door handed me Arthur’s armchair, which she had rescued from the curb and hidden in her garage for over a year. I bought a small cottage near my sister in Folsom, with room for cuttings from Arthur’s rosebushes. Douglas received twenty thousand dollars from me, paid directly to his creditors, only after he promised to attend counseling and repay the rest himself.
Douglas took a job at a hardware store and rented a small apartment. Every Sunday he drives out and helps me water the roses. Brittany sent a short letter months later, admitting she had mistaken my kindness for weakness. I kept it in the drawer with the deed. Now I sit in Arthur’s armchair on my porch each evening, and for the first time in six years, my home is peaceful and wholly mine.
