Chapter 2 - Six Years of SacrificeSix years earlier, I was living in a tiny apartment above a laundromat.
The walls shook whenever someone slammed a washing machine downstairs.
I worked two jobs.
During the day, I handled insurance claims.
At night, I managed a restaurant.
I came home exhausted and counted every dollar.
Not because I was ambitious.
Because I had a promise.
I wanted my own house.
After my divorce from a man who believed my salary belonged to our marriage, I had made one decision.
Never again.
The first year was brutal.
I stopped traveling.
I stopped buying clothes.
I stopped eating out.
When friends invited me on weekends, I lied.
“I’m busy.”
The truth was that I was putting another hundred dollars into my house account.
By the third year, I had saved enough for a serious down payment.
That was when Mom started asking questions.
“How much do you have saved?”
I didn't tell her.
“Why?”
“Because I’m proud of you.”
I knew that tone.
She was fishing.
Lucy also became strangely interested.
“Where do you keep your money?”
“Bank.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
She laughed.
“Jenny, you act like we're strangers.”
Maybe we were.
By the fourth year, I found the house.
It was enormous.
Not because I needed six bedrooms.
Because I wanted something peaceful.
A maple-lined driveway.
A sunroom.
A kitchen with windows overlooking a backyard.
A small library.
A bedroom upstairs with morning light.
I walked through it alone.
I remember touching the banister and thinking:
Mine.
I didn't tell my family when I made the offer.
I didn't even tell them when it was accepted.
When the closing date arrived, I sat in the lawyer's office holding a pen.
My hands were shaking.
Six years.
Six years of saying no to everything.
Then I signed.
The house cost one million dollars.
My mortgage was enormous.
But the title was mine.
For the first time in my life, I felt safe.
Until moving day.
Until Lucy's family arrived.
Now, standing in my kitchen with my father's mysterious signature in front of me, I couldn't stop thinking about those early years.
There was something I had forgotten.
Something Mom had said shortly before Dad died.
I had been twenty-three.
Dad was sick.
He'd taken me aside one evening.
“Jenny,” he said, “when I'm gone, don't let them convince you that love means surrendering everything.”
I laughed because I didn't understand.
“What does that mean?”
He had looked toward the hallway.
“Your mother knows.”
At the time, I thought he meant their marriage.
Now I wasn't sure.
Daniel still held the document.
“Jenny, look at the date.”
I did.
The statement had been notarized three months before Dad's death.
It claimed that my father had transferred a financial interest in a property into a family trust.
The property description was vague.
But the address matched my house.
My heart began pounding.
“You've got to be kidding me.”
Daniel shook his head.
“Did Dad own this land?”
“I don't know.”
Mom finally spoke.
“Jenny, you need to stop digging.”
I looked at the phone.
“Why?”
“Because some things are better left alone.”
“That's what people say when the truth hurts.”
Lucy suddenly grabbed Steve's arm.
“We should go.”
I looked at her.
“No.”
She froze.
“You're staying.”
“Jenny…”
“You and Steve are staying until I know exactly why you thought this house belonged to you.”
Steve's expression hardened.
“You're making a mistake.”
“Maybe.”
I looked at the document again.
“But mistakes are usually made in the dark.”
I held it up.
“And somebody in this family is about to have the lights turned on.”
Daniel quietly said, “Jenny…”
I looked at him.
He pointed at the bottom of the page.
There was another signature.
Not Dad's.
Not Mom's.
Not Steve's.
It belonged to a man named Harold Mercer.
My mother's brother.
My uncle.
The same uncle who had disappeared from our family nine years earlier.
May you like
And beneath his signature were four words.
“She cannot know yet.”
