My Family Tried to Evict Me from the Craftsman House My Grandparents Left Me
I closed my notebook. “Thank you, Mr. Henderson. If she comes back, please call me immediately.”
“I will,” he said. “But you should know she was not alone. She had a young man with her who identified himself as a private mortgage broker.”
I found my mother, Helen, sitting in a corner booth at the bakery on Tenth Street at two o’clock. She was smoothing the front of her pleated beige skirt with both hands, her fingernails painted a soft coral.
A plate with an untouched lemon scone sat between us. She smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners in that practiced way she used for church fundraisers.
“You look pale, Emily,” she said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “You are working too hard at the firm. All those tax returns are draining you.”
“The bank called me, Mom,” I said, setting my purse on the vinyl seat beside me. “Ashley tried to access Grandfather’s accounts yesterday.”
My mother did not flinch. She reached into her leather handbag and pulled out a folded document printed on heavy bond paper.
