Chapter 9: What the Parcel Was Worth
Numbers landed in a supplemental report that made the bat look even smaller.
If the zoning held, Ryan’s layered interest was worth more than our house, more than my career’s salary trajectory, more than any charity drive he had ever organized. The assault now read, in the harsh light of motive, as risk management. Mom had not been an old woman with opinions. She had been a potential witness with a signature.
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I did not hate him in a hot way. Heat was inefficient. I executed the separation steps, supported Mom’s care plan, and let the state carry the criminal burden. On Sundays I drove her to see the garden from the car if she was too sore to walk the rows. Tomatoes reddened without his pie tins.
Ryan attempted one letter to me, routed through counsel, full of selective memory and spiritual language. I returned it unread to Ruiz’s office with a note: No direct contact. The letter joined a file. Files, unlike apple pies, did not pretend to be sweet.
