Chapter 10: The Evening She Came Home
Jessica came home at half past seven.
The kitchen light was on.
David was at the table.
Jasmine was at the counter.
Tyler was in his room.
Jessica walked in, set her laptop bag on the chair by the door, and looked at both of them.
"Something smells good," she said.
Nobody answered.
She went to the counter, picked up the kettle, filled it at the sink.
Her back was to them.
"I want to talk," David said.
"I just got in," she said.
"I know.
I want to talk anyway."
The kettle clicked onto its base.
Jessica turned around.
She looked at David first.
Then at Jasmine.
Something moved through her expression — a very fast calculation, there and gone.
"Alright," she said.
"Sit down," David said.
She sat.
David placed a single sheet of paper on the table in front of her.
It was a copy of the letter from Hartley and Crane that Jasmine had found in the garage.
Jessica looked at it.
"Where did you get that?" she said.
"It doesn't matter," David said.
"What matters is that while you were telling me the deed was about security and peace of mind, you were already consulting a property lawyer about how to transfer full ownership to yourself."
"That is not what that letter says."
"Geoffrey read it.
He disagrees."
"Geoffrey is your lawyer.
He will say whatever you're paying him to say."
"Marcus Lowe called my daughter today," David said.
"Directly.
Using information that could only have come from your private consultation."
Jessica's jaw tightened.
Only slightly.
"I don't control what Marcus does," she said.
"You told him to call her.
You told him to discourage her.
Because Geoffrey's notice arrived and you knew the timeline was slipping."
"David—"
"Tyler came home early this morning." His voice did not rise.
Did not shake.
It had the quality of something that has been resolved rather than decided.
"He heard you on the phone.
He heard you tell Marcus you needed the original filing date to look right."
The room was very still.
Jessica sat perfectly upright.
Her hands were on the table, both of them flat, which Jasmine had learned meant Jessica was thinking fast.
"Tyler is a teenager," she said.
"He misheard."
"He repeated it to me word for word," David said.
"This evening.
At that table."
"He's a child.
He doesn't understand what he heard."
"Jessica." David's voice stopped her completely.
"I've already spoken to Geoffrey.
If the filing date on the deed transfer was altered, the transfer is void.
He is filing a request for documentary review first thing Monday morning."
Jessica looked at him.
For the first time since Jasmine had known her, something in Jessica's composure actually cracked.
It was small — a slight parting of the lips, a very brief widening of the eyes — but it was there.
Real and unguarded, just for a second.
"You can't do that," she said.
"I already have," David said.
"I am on that deed.
I have legal standing.
You cannot simply remove me."
"If the date was falsified, the deed is fraudulent.
Geoffrey says it's very clear."
Jessica stood up from the table.
"I want to speak to Marcus," she said.
"Tonight."
"You're welcome to do that," David said.
"You should also know that Geoffrey has filed a professional conduct complaint against Marcus Lowe with the property law oversight body.
For contacting my daughter."
Jessica looked at Jasmine then.
Directly.
For the first time all evening.
"This is you," she said.
"You did this."
Jasmine met her gaze.
"You handed me a list with $6,400 written in red ink," Jasmine said.
"You told me to pay or pack permanently.
From my own mother's house."
The word *mother* landed in the room like something irreversible.
Jessica picked up her laptop bag from the chair by the door.
"I'll be staying somewhere else tonight," she said.
"That's your choice," David said.
She walked out.
The front door closed.
Not sl@mmed.
Just closed.
Which was somehow worse — the sound of a person who still believed this was not yet over.
David sat at the table without moving for a long moment.
Jasmine poured two glasses of water.
Set one in front of him.
Sat down.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
He thought about it genuinely, which she appreciated.
"No," he said.
"But I will be."
May you like
She nodded.
They sat together in the quiet kitchen, in her mother's house, and listened to the ordinary sounds of the neighborhood settling into evening.
