Two weeks after Derek told me I was no longer welcome, Ray Proctor arrived at the villa.
I was inside when I heard him come through the front entrance.
He didn't knock for long.
He walked in as though he already knew the place belonged to him.
I watched him move through the kitchen.
He opened cabinets.
He checked the faucets.
He looked into the rooms without asking whether I minded.
I stood nearby.
He didn't seem uncomfortable.
That was the first thing I noticed.
He wasn't behaving like someone visiting another person's home.
He was behaving like someone inspecting a property he had recently purchased.
After walking through the kitchen, he went outside.
I followed him.
He sat down in Arthur's porch swing.
He stretched his legs and rested his boots against the railing.
Then he opened a beer.
I watched him.
That swing had taken me hours to build.
I had chosen the white oak carefully.
I had measured the seat more than once because I wanted it to be comfortable.
Arthur had never sat in it.
Ray didn't know any of that.
He took out his phone and called Donna.
He put her on speaker.
"Donna, you should see this place."
I remained near the doorway.
He described the four bedrooms.
He mentioned the ocean view.
He talked about the wraparound porch.
Then he laughed.
"We really came out ahead."
I looked at him.
He raised his beer slightly.
"You're going to like it here, Vivien."
I didn't answer.
He continued talking to Donna.
He told her the house was bigger than they needed.
He sounded pleased with himself.
Then he said something that stayed with me.
"Don't worry about the kitchen things. We'll bring our own."
He looked toward me.
"Vivien won't mind."
I felt my jaw tighten.
But I didn't say anything.
I had already begun taking photographs whenever Ray or the others entered the house.
I photographed the rooms.
I photographed the furniture.
I photographed the places where things had been moved.
I wasn't trying to create an argument.
I wanted a record of what was happening.
That evening, I looked through the photographs.
The kitchen still looked like my kitchen.
The cabinets were still the ones I had restored.
The porch swing was still hanging from the chains I had installed.
But the way Ray had occupied it made the whole place feel different.
I realized something.
They weren't waiting for permission anymore.
They believed permission had already been given.
The following day, Donna arrived.
She carried fabric samples and a measuring tape.
I recognized the measuring tape immediately.
It was the kind used for windows and furniture.
She walked into the living room and began looking at the curtains.
Then she moved toward the bedroom.
I followed.
She measured the windows.
She examined the walls.
Then she announced that the coral paint had to go.
She wanted gray.
I stood near the bedroom doorway.
Those walls had taken me a long time to finish.
I remembered choosing that color.
I had wanted something warm.
Something that looked pleasant in the morning sunlight.
It wasn't a decision I had made in a hurry.
I had brought home samples.
I had held them against the wall.
I had looked at them at different times of day.
Eventually, I chose coral.
Donna looked at the walls as if she were examining something that needed to be corrected.
Then she went into the garage.
She found the old paint cans.
Seafoam.
Coral.
Driftwood.
I had kept them because I knew the colors might be useful for small repairs.
She read the labels.
Then she laughed.
"These are going to have to go."
I heard her phone ringing.
Megan was on the other end.
Donna spoke as though I wasn't standing nearby.
"The curtains are terrible. They look old. And these wall colors are going to make everything difficult."
She looked toward the bedroom window.
"We'll replace all of it."
I was only a few steps away.
She never turned around.
I felt something inside me go quiet.
It wasn't the paint.
It wasn't the curtains.
It was the way she spoke about my home as though the years I had spent working on it were an inconvenience.
I had never expected everyone to like my decorating choices.
I didn't expect Ray to admire the cabinets.
I didn't expect Donna to love the coral bedroom.
But I had expected them to understand that this was somebody else's home.
That seemed to be the one thing they refused to acknowledge.
I took more photographs.
I kept them with the others.
A few days later, Megan came to see me.
She arrived without much conversation.
She sat at the kitchen table.
I placed a glass of water in front of her.
She reached into her bag and removed a folded piece of paper.
Then she laid it between us.
It was a photocopy of the quitclaim deed.
I recognized the document immediately.
My signature was at the bottom.
For a moment, I simply looked at it.
There was something unsettling about seeing my own handwriting used as an argument against me.
Megan pointed toward the page.
"Derek handled the property paperwork years ago."
I said nothing.
She explained that my name had been taken off the property.
She spoke with confidence.
She seemed to believe the matter was settled.
"My parents need somewhere to live."
I looked at her.
"And what does that have to do with me?"
She didn't seem to appreciate the question.
"You have somewhere else."
I glanced toward the back windows.
Beyond them were the gardenias I had planted.
I could see a little of the porch railing.
I thought about the years of work that had gone into this house.
Then I looked back at Megan.
She told me her parents needed the villa more than I did.
I asked her what she meant by the word family.
She answered without hesitation.
"The people who need the house should be the ones who get it."
I looked down at the photocopy again.
My signature was clear.
The date was there.
The paper looked official.
But it had never been recorded.
I knew that.
Doris had made sure I understood the difference.
Megan didn't seem to know.
Or perhaps she simply believed I wouldn't challenge her.
I folded the photocopy carefully.
I didn't tear it.
I didn't throw it back across the table.
I handed it to her.
"Thank you for bringing this."
She looked satisfied.
I could tell she believed she had accomplished something.
She gathered her things and left.
I watched her walk toward the front door.
Then I looked at the kitchen table.
There was a small mark on the wood where the photocopy had been sitting.
I rubbed it with my thumb.
Nothing special.
Just a mark.
But I found myself thinking about how easily people could convince themselves they owned something simply because they had a piece of paper.
Megan had brought me the very document that showed how their plan had been built.
And she had done it herself.
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: The Two Binders That Held Twenty Years of Work, and the Financial Document That Made My Attorney Take a Different View
The Afternoon My Son Told Me I Had Lost the Right to Enter the House I Had Spent Twenty Years Building
Part 3 of 24
