Chapter 15 - The Lowest Room
I had imagined returning from Kuwait to quiet.
A familiar pillow.
Coffee at the kitchen table.
Maybe a few afternoons on the porch swing, listening to the pecan leaves move in the wind.
Instead I spent that Saturday sitting on a basement couch while my family discussed me through the floorboards.
The room felt smaller every hour.
I was exhausted from deployment, from paperwork, from being forced to defend ownership of the only home that had ever felt entirely safe.
Mara called to say the title dispute would not be resolved immediately.
The bank had not yet decided how much of the disputed money it could recover.
And lawful removal of the occupants could take more time if they refused to cooperate.
Those were not defeats.
But they felt like them.
I had facts, witnesses, and legal counsel.
They had the kitchen, the bedrooms, and the ability to make every morning miserable.
I stared at the eleven bags still sitting near the staircase.
One had split open, exposing a blue sweatshirt I bought before my first deployment.
I suddenly missed Grandpa so sharply that I had to sit down.
He would have known what to say.
Or perhaps he would simply have made coffee and waited for me to find my own words.
I retrieved his letter.
On the final page, beneath the warning about Gene, was a paragraph I had skimmed too quickly.
Quinn, there is a difference between being generous and making yourself available for punishment.
You may open your door to anyone you choose.
You are allowed to close it, too.
I read it until I could breathe normally again.
Then I heard footsteps.
Paige came downstairs alone.
She looked tired, and for once she wasn't wearing anything from my closet.
"I need to ask you something," she said.
I waited.
"If Dad forged your name, could he have done it to me too?"
My anger didn't vanish.
But it changed shape.
"What did he have you sign?"
She looked toward the stairs.
"A guarantee for Brett's company.
He said it was just paperwork for the baby."
"Did you read it?"
Her eyes filled.
"No."
I closed Grandpa's letter.
"Then you need your own attorney, Paige.
Immediately."
May you like
She whispered, "I think the loan is in my name."
