Chapter 6: When Terrence Called
He called three days before the hearing.
I was in the middle of organizing a folder of bank statements when my phone lit up on the counter.
Terrence.
I looked at it for two full rings before I answered.
"Mom." His voice was lower than usual.
Careful.
"I think we should talk before the fourteenth."
"We are talking," I said.
"I mean in person.
Just the two of us.
Not with lawyers or anyone else."
"Is Lennox aware you're calling me?"
A pause.
"She doesn't need to know everything."
I set the bank statements down.
"What do you want to say, Terrence?"
"I want to explain.
The way things happened — the document, showing up at the house like that — it wasn't supposed to go that way."
"How was it supposed to go?"
"Lennox thought if you saw the petition first, you'd understand how serious we were.
She thought you'd agree to let us move in just to avoid the court process."
"She thought I'd be frightened into saying yes."
He didn't deny it.
"I told her it was the wrong approach.
I told her we should sit down and talk to you first."
"And yet you signed the petition."
The silence stretched.
"Did you know about Gerald?" I asked.
Another pause.
Longer.
"She said he could help strengthen the filing.
That it would look better with a family member included."
"You allowed your wife to contact my estranged brother and recruit him for a legal action against me, without telling me."
"I know how it sounds."
"It sounds like exactly what it is." I kept my voice level.
"What do you actually want from me right now, Terrence?
Not Lennox.
You."
He was quiet for a long moment.
When he spoke again, some of the careful composure had gone out of his voice.
"I want you to not go through with this.
The hearing.
I don't want this to become a legal thing."
"You made it a legal thing."
"We can withdraw the petition.
I can talk to Lennox.
If you'd just let us stay for a few months, even just one month—"
"No."
"Mom—"
"No." I sat down at the kitchen table.
"You came to my home with a plan to take it from me.
You used my financial documents, which I shared with you in good faith, to build that plan.
You brought in a man I haven't spoken to since your grandmother's funeral.
And now you're calling me three days before a court date to ask me to make it go away quietly." I paused.
"I am not going to do that."
His breath was audible on the line.
"Terrence, I have one question for you.
And I want you to think carefully before you answer."
"What?"
"Did Lennox know about the $40,000 I contributed to your house purchase when she started planning this?"
The silence that followed was the longest one yet.
"She knew," he finally said.
"So she factored my own money into the case for why I should lose control of what's left."
He didn't answer.
"I'll see you on the fourteenth," I said, and ended the call.
I sat with the phone face-down on the table.
My chest felt hollow and tight at the same time.
But underneath that, running quiet and steady, was something harder than grief.
Something that would hold.
My phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
*We need to talk.
This is Gerald.
Please don't ignore this.
May you like
There are things about Lennox you don't know.
Things I should have said before I signed anything.*
