Diane’s scream echoed across the frozen yard. Gordon rushed outside in his slippers, still carrying his morning coffee, as she shoved the papers into his hands. “He can’t do this!” she kept shouting. I remained beside Miles’s car with my hands buried in my pockets, watching my father’s expression change as he read the first page and then the second.

Tiffany appeared behind them in pajamas, already holding up her phone to record. “What is that?” she demanded. Gordon ignored her and turned to the final page—the one bearing my signature and a date from nine years earlier. His coffee slipped from his fingers and shattered against the porch. “Diane,” he whispered, “the deed. He’s had it for nine years.” Every trace of color disappeared from my mother’s face. She slowly raised her eyes toward me, finally realizing exactly what those papers meant.

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