I’m using the right one.”
He checked the key, tried again, and pressed the doorbell.
Nadia opened it.
“Can I help you?”
Adam stared at her.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Nadia Brooks.
I live here.”
“No, you don’t.
This is my mother’s house.”
“It was your mother’s house,” Nadia replied.
“We bought it last week.”
Adam looked at her as though she had begun speaking another language.
“That’s impossible.”
Nadia handed him the envelope.
“Your mother asked me to give you this.”
He tore it open.
The first page confirmed the sale.
He read it twice.
Then he turned to the second page.
I saw his shoulders stiffen.
He recognised the estate-agent form immediately.
At that point, I crossed the road.
“Mum?” he said when he saw me.
“Hello, Adam.
How was France?”
Tessa stared between us.
“What have you done?” she demanded.
“I’ve moved,” I replied.
“Without discussing it with us?”
I looked at her.
“That’s rather the point.”
Adam held up the sale confirmation.
“You can’t sell the house without my agreement!”
“Actually, I can.
It belonged to your father and me, and after Colin died, it belonged to me.
My solicitor made certain every part of the sale was properly completed.”
“You’re confused,” he said quickly.
“You must have misunderstood the plans we made.”
I felt a familiar ache at the word.
“Adam, I understand the situation perfectly.
I also understand the form you sent to the estate agent bearing my signature.”
He looked at the document.
“I was just trying to organise things.”
“By telling people I couldn’t manage my own affairs?”
“You were making everything difficult.”
“Everything being my refusal to hand over my home?”
He moved closer.
“Mum, please.
Can we talk inside?”
“No,” Nadia said from the doorway.
“This is our home.
You need to leave the entrance clear.”
Tessa looked past her at the unfamiliar furniture inside.
For the first time, she seemed to understand that the house had not merely been emptied for a renovation.
It was gone from their reach.
Adam lowered his voice.
“We’ve made commitments, Mum.
Serious ones.”
“What sort of commitments?”
He didn’t answer.
Then Tessa opened her handbag and took out a folded sheet of paper.
“What about the deposit declaration?” she asked him.
Adam turned sharply.
“Tessa, put that away.”
“No,” she replied.
“You told me Ruth had agreed to give us two hundred and twenty thousand pounds from the house.
You said the paperwork had been signed.”
I looked at her.
“What paperwork?”
Tessa handed me the sheet.
It was a copy of a gifted-deposit declaration intended for their mortgage application on a larger property near Bath.
It stated that I had agreed to give them £220,000 without expecting repayment or an ownership interest.
At the bottom was another signature that was supposed to be mine.
It wasn’t.
The paper seemed strangely light in my hands.
I looked at Adam.
“Did you send this to a mortgage broker?”
He stared at the pavement.
“Adam.”
“Yes,” he said at last.
Tessa made a small, startled sound.
“But you said she’d signed it herself.”
“She was going to!” he snapped.
“She would have agreed if everyone hadn’t made such a fuss!”
I looked from one face to the other.
That single sentence told me everything.
Adam
