Chapter 3 - What They Were Counting On
Victor called seven times.
On the eighth, I answered.
“Where did you get the idea that workshop belongs to you?”
I looked around my kitchen.
My kitchen.
“From the attorney handling Grandpa’s trust.”
A pause.
Then his voice softened.
“Elena, there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“I have the documents.”
“You don’t understand the bigger picture.”
“Then send it to Thomas.”
He exhaled sharply.
“We’re family. We shouldn’t need lawyers to speak.”
“You used one yesterday.”
I ended the call before my courage deserted me.
My whole body shook afterward.
For years, I had practiced being agreeable because Grandpa needed a peaceful house. Every argument with Victor or Larissa left him exhausted.
Now saying one clear sentence felt like lifting something too heavy.
June found me standing motionless beside the sink.
“Tea?”
“I just hung up on my uncle.”
“Then two biscuits.”
That afternoon, Thomas came to show me the workshop.
The main room held benches, cabinets, and shelves covered with dust sheets. Grandpa’s tools hung in neat rows.
A half-finished saddle rested beneath a window.
“He kept some equipment here,” Thomas explained. “The contractor worked around it.”
I touched the edge of a wooden bench.
There were tiny crescent marks from my childhood attempts at tooling leather.
I used to stand on a crate beside Grandpa.
He never sanded those marks away.
In the rear office, Thomas showed me a fireproof filing cabinet.
“The trust records are here, along with building documents. I recommend keeping copies elsewhere.”
“Why is Victor asking about this place?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Your grandfather believed Victor had made assumptions.”
“What kind?”
“About a development proposal involving the neighboring property.”
He unfolded a survey.
A company called Hartwell Communities had offered to buy Grandpa’s residential land, subject to several conditions.
One involved access across the workshop parcel.
The old service lane ran beside the creek and connected to the main road.
Without permission to use it, the proposed entrance would require a costly redesign.
“Did Grandpa sign anything?”
“No access agreement was completed.”
“Then why would Victor think—”
I stopped.
Grandpa had been ill.
Victor had been impatient.
And nobody ever explained a complicated matter to me unless they needed something carried upstairs.
Thomas pointed to the lane.
“You own the beneficial interest in this parcel through the trust. Any agreement must go through the proper process. Don’t sign something simply because a relative calls it routine.”
It sounded like advice earned the hard way.
Before he left, he gave me a copy of the development correspondence Grandpa had saved.
That evening, I found Victor’s name on an email.
He described himself as the family’s authorized representative.
The date was six months before Grandpa died.
I remembered that month.
Grandpa had developed a chest infection. I slept in a chair outside his room because he became frightened when breathing was difficult.
Victor came once.
He stayed twenty minutes.
Apparently, he found time for business afterward.
At seven, Larissa arrived.
She knocked with the sharp rhythm of someone who expected obedience.
I spoke through the closed door.
“What do you want?”
“To see what you’ve taken.”
“I haven’t taken anything from the estate.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“Yes.”
Her face appeared through the narrow window.
She looked past me at the clean cabinets and new stove.
Something changed in her expression.
“He paid for all this?”
I said nothing.
“While Victor was helping with expenses?”
“Victor didn’t pay Grandpa’s expenses.”
“He managed things.”
“I managed the bedpans you laughed about.”
She stepped back.
For a moment, I thought she might understand.
Then she recovered.
“You turned him against us.”
“No. He knew you.”
She struck the door with her palm.
Ranger stood behind me and barked once.
His old voice filled the apartment.
Larissa looked toward him.
“That dog has more sense than you. At least he knows when to make himself useful.”
I closed the curtain.
My phone vibrated almost immediately.
A message from Kyle.
Nice place. Shame if somebody asks where the renovation money came from.
I forwarded it to Thomas.
Then I checked every lock.
Ranger followed me from door to door, his hips stiff but his attention steady.
When we finally lay down, he slept beside my bed.
I stayed awake listening to the creek.
May you like
I had found a home.
Now I needed to understand why my family seemed so afraid of it.
