He looked down at the box.
“Because I can’t keep lying to you.”
I stepped aside.
Jake entered slowly and placed the box on the kitchen table.
For several minutes, he sorted through the papers without speaking.
Then he removed a photocopy of a deed.
The document appeared to transfer certain rights connected to the Franklin Road property to a company called Mitchell Commercial Holdings.
The signature at the bottom was mine.
I stared at it.
My name.
My handwriting, or something that looked disturbingly similar.
But I had never signed that document.
“Jake,” I whispered, “where did this come from?”
He rubbed his face.
“Mom gave it to me when the business expanded. She said you had agreed to transfer the property into the company.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I asked her to let me speak to you before I signed the lease documents. She told me you were going through a difficult time and didn’t want to be bothered.”
I felt my knees weaken.
“And you believed her?”
“At first.”
“What changed?”
He looked at me.
“Because I saw you at Christmas two years ago. You were talking about saving money to buy a house, and Mom said something about how irresponsible it was for you to expect everyone else to rescue you.”
His voice cracked.
“I realized you didn’t know anything about the property.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“You knew two years ago?”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of losing everything I’d built.”
I stepped away from the table.
“So you let me struggle because you didn’t want to lose your business.”
Jake began to cry.
“I told myself Mom would fix it. I told myself the paperwork was complicated. I thought if I waited long enough, everything would become legal.”
“Things don’t become legal because you ignore them.”
“I know.”
“No, Jake. You know now because someone else discovered the truth.”
He lowered his head.
I wanted to hate him.
Part of me did.
But another part remembered the little boy who had followed me around our childhood backyard, begging me to teach him how to ride a bicycle.
I remembered him crying when our grandfather died.
I remembered him holding Mason for the first time.
Love didn’t disappear simply because someone had betrayed you.
Sometimes it became the very thing that made betrayal so difficult to accept.
Jake pushed the photocopy toward me.
“There’s something else.”
He removed a folded sheet of paper.
It was a handwritten note from my mother.
The original documents must remain secure. Do not discuss Sarah’s ownership with anyone outside the family. Once the bank approves the expansion loan, everything will be much easier to explain.
The note was dated eleven months earlier.
I read it twice.
Then I looked at Jake.
“What does ‘once the bank approves the expansion loan’ mean?”
His face turned pale.
“The business borrowed money against the property.”
“But the property wasn’t his to use as collateral.”
“I know.”
“How much?”
He hesitated.
“One point eight million dollars.”
The room seemed to grow smaller.
“Who guaranteed the loan?”
Jake looked toward the window.
