Chapter 8 - THE HOUSE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BELONG TO SUSAN
Susan began telling relatives I planned to throw her onto the street.
That worked.
Calls arrived.
Texts.
Aunts I had not spoken to in years.
Your mother sacrificed everything.
Greg kept the property alive while you disappeared.
Paige is manipulating you because of the settlement.
There was one problem.
Susan did not live in my house by necessity.
She owned a condo twelve minutes away.
Paid off.
She rented it out.
The rent had been going into her personal account for four years while she lived in mine without paying anything.
Again:
Not automatically illegal.
But the sacrifice story weakened.
Then I found the original arrangement.
An email I sent before moving to Calgary:
Mom, please help Paige with bills and contractors. Use the transfer account only for house expenses and anything Paige needs. Keep receipts.
Susan replied:
Of course. Don’t worry about home. I’ll make sure your wife is taken care of.
There it was.
Not ambiguous.
Then:
Receipts.
She had almost none.
The renovations did exist.
But some invoices were inflated through Greg’s company.
Others billed work never completed.
We hired an independent construction estimator.
The expensive “foundation reinforcement” Susan said cost $21,000:
No evidence it had occurred.
The company on the invoice?
An LLC registered by Greg.
The new floors were real.
Granite real.
Television real.
SUV real.
Cancer real.
Their priorities were simply documented in different materials.
Paige came home from treatment one afternoon and stood in the kitchen.
She touched the granite countertop.
“I used to sleep with crackers in the shed because Susan said food costs were too high.”
I wanted to rip the counter out.
Paige stopped me.
“No.”
“Why?”
“I’m tired of destroying things because they remind us of bad people.”
May you like
That was one of the first signs her recovery was not going to follow my anger.
She did not want revenge decorating her life either.
