PART 2
“If she signs it, that is it,” Colleen’s recorded voice said. “She cannot undo it after.”
Paula looked at her aunt. Colleen lowered her eyes.
“She will sign it,” Dale’s voice continued. “She signs whatever Paula puts in front of her.”
The recording carried on for another few seconds, with the scrape of a chair and Dale saying that Paula did not need to be in the middle of it. Then I stopped it.
Nobody touched the roast.
Paula looked at Dale. “What was she supposed to sign?”
Dale put his fork down. “Your mother has been listening to us?”
“That is not what she asked,” Colleen said.
He turned toward her. “You brought the papers.”
“I brought what you gave me,” Colleen said. “You said she understood.”
“I said she would understand.”
“You said Paula knew.”
Paula pushed back from the table. “Knew what?”
Dale looked at me then, not with embarrassment, but with annoyance. I had expected denial. I had expected him to say the recording was incomplete or that I had misunderstood. Instead, he looked as if I had interrupted something he had already decided belonged to him.
“Dale,” Paula said, “what were you going to have Mom sign?”
“It was paperwork about the living arrangement.”
“Why did you bring Colleen into it?”
“Because your mother trusts her.”
Colleen gave a small, bitter laugh. “That is not why you called me.”
I looked at Colleen. “Tell her what you told me on the recording.”
She swallowed. “He said you needed to make a decision about staying here. He said the papers would settle it.”
“Settle what?” Paula asked.
Colleen shook her head. “I did not read all of them. I should have. I know that now.”
Dale stood up. “This is ridiculous.”
“No,” Paula said. “It is not.”
He stared at her. “You are going to take her side because she made a recording?”
“I am asking what you planned to do.”
“It was not a plan to hurt anybody.”
“You called her a line item.”
He looked at me. “You were not supposed to hear that.”
That was the closest he came to admitting anything, and Paula heard it.
She turned toward me. “Mom, is what he said about the house true?”
I had rehearsed that answer in my head all night. It still felt difficult to say.
“I sold the Ridgeway house four years ago,” I said. “I gave you and Dale all of the money for the down payment.”
Paula’s face changed. “All of it?”
“All of it.”
Dale cut in. “We used it for the house. That does not mean she owns the room.”
“I did not say I owned the room,” I told him. “I said I paid for the house you are trying to put me out of.”
Paula looked from him to me. “You told me it was settlement money.”
“I said your mother had money from the house.”
“You said it was a settlement.”
“I might have used that word.”
“You did.”
His voice rose, but he did not shout. That made it more frightening to me than shouting would have been. He sounded like a man trying to keep control of a conversation that was no longer his.
Colleen finally set her purse on the floor.
“I am sorry, Marguerite,” she said. “I should have come to you first.”
“You should have.”
“I thought you already knew what he wanted.”
“I did not.”
She nodded once. “I know.”
Paula looked at the papers in Colleen’s purse. “Are they here?”
Colleen took them out but did not hand them to Dale. She placed them on the table between the plates.
“I am not signing anything,” I said.
Dale gave a short laugh. “Nobody asked you to sign today.”
“You asked Colleen to bring them.”
“That was not an order.”
“It does not have to be an order if you expect people to do what you say.”
Paula picked up the papers. She read the first page, then the next. I watched her eyes move, but I did not ask what she saw. The papers were about my staying in the house and the arrangement Dale wanted me to accept. I did not need to guess at their purpose anymore. He had decided that my room was worth more to him than my comfort, and he had tried to put that decision in front of me as if it were an ordinary family matter.
Paula set the papers down.
“You are not giving these to Mom,” she said.
Dale looked at her. “Paula.”
“No. You do not get to do this behind my back and then tell me I am not in the middle.”
“I was trying to solve a problem.”
“Your problem is that my mother lives here.”
“Our problem is that she has been here four years.”
“She gave us the money for this house.”
“I know what she gave us.”
“Then why did you call it a line item?”
He did not answer.
The roast sat untouched. Colleen remained standing, and I could see that she wanted to leave but did not want to leave me alone with the two of them. Paula seemed to understand that. She moved her chair closer to mine.
Dale picked up his phone from the table.
“Where are you going?” Paula asked.
“I need some air.”
“You need to come back and talk to me.”
“I have nothing more to say.”
“You have plenty to say. You just did not plan to say it to me.”
He left through the back door. The house became quiet except for the receiver still in my apron pocket, its small light showing through the fabric.
Paula sat there with both hands around a glass of water.
“Why did you not tell me he was saying these things?” she asked.
“I wanted to believe you knew.”
“I did not know about the money.”
“I know.”
“And you have been listening to us for three weeks?”
“Yes.”
She looked hurt. She had every right to be.
“I am sorry,” I said. “I was afraid that if I asked you, you would defend him before you knew what I was asking.”
“I might have.”
“I know.”
For a while, neither of us spoke. Then Paula reached over and took the receiver from my apron pocket.
“You kept this under your pillow?”
“Yes.”
She looked at the little plastic box and then placed it face down on the table.
“I hate that you felt you had to do this,” she said.
“So do I.”
She did not tell me everything would be fine. I was grateful for that. She said she would not ask me to sign anything, and she would not let Dale make decisions about my room without speaking to me directly. She also said that he and I could not continue living as though the money and the conversation had never happened.
Colleen apologized once more before she left. I accepted it, though accepting an apology did not erase the years of silence between us. Paula walked her to the door and then came back to sit with me until Dale returned.
He did return, but he did not come back to the table. He took his things from the kitchen and went to another part of the house. Paula did not follow him. That night, for the first time since I moved into the den, she closed my door gently before she went to bed.
I never played the recording again. Paula had heard enough, and I had too. The papers stayed on the table until she put them away without my signature.
I still live in the converted den. I no longer listen through the monitor, and I no longer pretend that the room, the money or my place in that house were temporary simply because Dale said so.
