I opened the green folder.
“The down payment on this house came from my personal account,” I said evenly. “From the life insurance money I received after my mother died in that bus accident on I-95.”
The room went deathly silent except for the rain.
“Daniel knows that,” I continued. “He signed a notarized postnuptial agreement stating that the money was mine and that if we ever divorced, he had to repay it in full before any division of assets.”
Mercedes’ perfectly arched eyebrows shot up. “You’re lying.”
I slid the first document across the island. The one with Daniel’s signature, dated three months after we closed on the house.
Karla stopped recording.
Daniel finally opened his eyes but couldn’t look at anyone.
“You didn’t have to say it like that,” he muttered.
I laughed once, sharp and humorless.
“I didn’t have to say it like that? But you had to let your mother treat me like a squatter in the house I helped build with the worst pain of my life?”
Mercedes turned to her son. “Daniel, tell me she’s lying.”
He said nothing.
The silence stretched until it became unbearable.
Mercedes’ face cycled through disbelief, embarrassment, and finally rage. She tightened her grip on the suitcase handle so hard her knuckles went white.
“Even if it’s true,” she said coldly, lifting her chin, “a decent wife doesn’t charge her husband for helping build a life together.”
