After Megan left, I called Tommy Guidry.
I didn't need to explain everything.
He had known me since the cottage was little more than a damaged building with a failing porch.
He had watched the renovation happen.
He knew how much of the work I had done myself.
I asked whether he still had copies of the construction records.
He said he did.
That was a relief.
I had kept my own papers, but I wanted everything brought together.
Every permit.
Every invoice.
Every inspection report.
Every record showing what had been purchased and when the work had been completed.
Tommy agreed to help me organize them.
We arranged to meet and began going through the records.
Some were easy to identify.
Others took longer.
There were receipts from building-supply stores.
There were invoices for materials.
There were permits bearing my name.
There were inspection reports documenting the work.
I looked at the dates.
Twenty years had passed since I bought the cottage.
I remembered those summers more clearly than I expected.
I remembered the dust.
The damaged porch.
The bathroom tile.
The cypress cabinets.
I remembered the money I had spent and the weekends I had given up.
I remembered the times I had worked until I was too tired to make dinner.
Tommy sat beside me, helping sort the paperwork.
We prepared two binders.
The first recorded the purchase and the renovation.
The original purchase price had been eighty-five thousand dollars.
The renovation costs came to two hundred and forty-seven thousand.
I looked at the figure for a long time.
Two hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars.
It was more than money.
It represented three summers of my life.
It represented the hours I had spent learning things I had never expected to learn.
It represented the work I had done when my body was tired and my hands were sore.
The second binder contained the records for taxes and insurance.
Twenty years.
Another one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
I added the figures again.
The total was more than four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
I sat back.
It was strange seeing all those years reduced to numbers.
But the numbers mattered.
They showed that the villa hadn't appeared out of nowhere.
Nobody had handed it to me.
Nobody had built it for me.
I had purchased it, repaired it, maintained it, and paid for it.
Arthur's insurance money had helped me begin.
My own savings and income had carried the work forward.
I had done the rest with my hands.
Tommy looked through one of the binders.
"You kept everything."
I nodded.
"I always thought I might need it."
I hadn't known what kind of situation would make those papers necessary.
I certainly hadn't imagined my son trying to put another family inside the house while telling me to stay away.
Still, the records were there.
And I was grateful.
I took the binders to my attorney.
He had already reviewed the trust documents.
Now he had the construction records and the financial information.
We went through everything carefully.
He asked questions.
I answered them.
He checked the dates.
He compared the documents.
Then he found something I hadn't expected.
Derek had listed the villa as his personal asset on a loan application.
My attorney showed me the relevant information.
I read it once.
Then again.
I couldn't immediately understand why Derek would have done that.
He had never completed the deed transfer.
The villa was held in my trust.
Yet he had presented it as property belonging to him.
I looked at my attorney.
"Why would he do that?"
He explained what the document showed.
I sat quietly.
Until that moment, I had thought Derek's actions were mainly about Megan's parents needing a place to live.
I had believed he had made an arrangement with them based on something he thought was true.
Perhaps he had convinced himself the house was his.
Perhaps he had told them that story often enough that he no longer questioned it.
But the loan application changed the picture.
This wasn't only a family disagreement.
He had used a property he did not own when applying for credit.
I looked down at the papers.
For years, I had tried to avoid believing anything bad about my son.
I had explained away things I should have questioned.
I had chosen the kindest possible interpretation whenever his decisions confused me.
Now I had to look at the documents.
And the documents did not care how much I loved him.
I asked my attorney what we needed to do.
He reviewed the trust papers again.
He explained what he would bring and what would be necessary to establish the property's ownership.
I listened.
I didn't interrupt.
For the first time since the phone call, I felt that the situation was becoming clear.
Derek had one document with my signature.
I had a completed trust.
I had the construction records.
I had the purchase documents.
I had twenty years of financial records.
And I had an attorney who understood what those papers meant.
Still, I didn't want a confrontation.
I wanted the matter handled properly.
I didn't want neighbors shouting across the street.
I didn't want Ray and Donna humiliated in front of people.
I didn't want Megan turning the situation into another argument about who needed the property more.
But I also wasn't going to surrender my home.
The Proctors continued preparing for their move.
They had apparently made their decision.
The Saturday move-in date was approaching.
Ray and Donna ended their rental arrangement.
They rented a seventeen-foot U-Haul.
They invited friends to help carry their belongings.
They told people in the neighborhood that they had inherited the villa.
I heard about those conversations.
I could have corrected them.
I could have gone around telling everyone what had happened.
I didn't.
I let them believe what they wanted to believe.
I knew the truth.
My attorney knew the truth.
The trust documents existed.
There was no reason to argue with people who had already decided what they wanted to hear.
The move-in was scheduled for Saturday morning.
I spent the days before it checking the papers.
I made sure the documents were together.
I kept the photographs.
I made sure the binders were ready.
The white-oak swing remained outside.
The gardenias were still along the back fence.
The coral walls were still inside my bedroom.
I looked at those things differently now.
They were reminders of what I had built.
They were also reminders of what I was prepared to protect.
By Friday evening, I knew what I would do.
I would let them arrive.
I would not try to stop the U-Haul myself.
I would not have an argument with Derek in the driveway.
My attorney would be there.
The documents would speak for themselves.
I packed one small bag.
Then I checked the manila folder.
Everything I needed was inside.
On Saturday morning, I was ready.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: Saturday Morning Arrived With a Moving Truck, and My Neighbors Watched as Strangers Began Carrying My Life Away
The Afternoon My Son Told Me I Had Lost the Right to Enter the House I Had Spent Twenty Years Building
Part 4 of 24
