Chapter 9: Paper Returning
The deed’s cloud cleared; title insurance correspondence confirmed our names as they should have been. The forged trail remained a criminal problem, not a successful theft.
Teresa’s restraining order issued after a hearing where she called the judge “confused about family.” The judge was not confused. Distance became law. Mason took a plea that avoided the maximum and still put a mark on the family mythology of victimhood. Mythology frayed.
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I stopped the three-thousand-dollar transfers permanently and opened a household account Amy and I both controlled with alerts on both phones. Transparency was not romance. It was infrastructure. Amy set a grocery budget and cried when no one demanded a receipt for approval. I pretended not to notice the tears and stocked the fridge with fruit she liked.
On a Sunday I finally set the birthday cake tradition right—small, at home, blue dress, pendant already worn smooth by Frederick’s fist. We sang off-key. We did not invite the backyard. Amy smiled with her whole face. I took a picture for us alone.
