The Wife He Rejected Became His Aunt

Chapter Seven:What The Paper Said

I stared at the document for a long time.

My mother's name was at the top. Grace Omen. Her name before she married my father. Beside it was Daniel Kingston. And below both names was a date. Twenty eight years ago. I had not even been born yet.

It was an agreement.

Handwritten in parts and typed in others. The language was formal and old fashioned but the meaning was not difficult to follow. My grandfather had a piece of land on the eastern edge of the city. At the time it was not worth very much. He was an old man with no sons and two daughters and he was worried about what would happen to it after he died.

Daniel Kingston had come to him with an offer.

He would manage the land. Develop it slowly. Protect it from the kind of legal trouble that swallowed up properties owned by families who did not have lawyers or money to fight. In exchange my grandfather would give him management rights for fifteen years.

At the end of fifteen years the land would return fully to the family.

My mother had signed as witness.

Daniel Kingston had signed as manager.

And at the bottom of the page in handwriting I recognized as my grandfather's there was a note. Small and careful. It said that if Daniel Kingston failed to return the land at the agreed time then full ownership would pass directly to Grace Omen and her children after her.

I read it twice.

Then I looked up at Ethan.

"The fifteen years ended," I said.

"Thirteen years ago," he said.

I sat back in my chair.

Thirteen years. My grandfather had been dead for sixteen years. My mother had spent the last years of her life trying to get that land back and then she had died and I had not known any of this was happening. I had been in university when she was fighting this battle. She had protected me from all of it.

"Daniel never gave it back," I said.

"No," Ethan said. "He filed a counter claim two years after the agreement ended. He used lawyers my brother could afford and your mother could not. She fought it as long as she was alive. When she came to me near the end she was exhausted. She asked me to hold copies of this document. She said she was afraid the original would disappear."

I thought about my mother in her last year. How tired she had looked. How she had waved away my questions about her health and her stress. How she had said everything was fine in a voice that now I understood had been holding everything together by its edges.

She had been carrying this alone.

"The original," I said. "Where is it."

"That is the question," Ethan said. "This copy your mother gave me is strong evidence but a court would want the original. Your mother believed it was with a solicitor she used. A man named Hargreaves. He retired several years ago. I have been trying to locate him."

"And if you find him."

"Then you have a very solid claim to land that is now worth a significant amount of money," he said. "Developments went up on the eastern side over the last decade. The value is not what it was when your grandfather signed that paper."

I looked at the document again. At my mother's signature. Her handwriting was neat and slanted slightly to the right the way it always was.

"How much," I said.

Ethan was quiet for a moment.

"Enough that my brother married his son to you to keep it close," he said.

The room felt very still after that.

I had known that. Marcus had told me himself the day before. But hearing it said plainly in that quiet office with my mother's signature in front of me made it feel more real than it had before. More heavy.

My marriage had been a transaction.

I had been a way to keep land in reach of a family that had already stolen it once.

"Does Marcus know the full extent of what the land is worth," I said.

"I believe so," Ethan said. "His father would have told him enough to keep him motivated."

I thought about Marcus in our sitting room the day before. His tired eyes. The way he had said his feelings for me were real. I still believed that part. But real feelings had not been enough to make him tell me the truth. Real feelings had not been enough to make him choose me over his father's plan.

"What do I do now," I said.

Ethan folded his hands on the table.

"You let me find Hargreaves," he said. "You let my lawyers review this copy and begin building the case. You focus on your divorce and you let me handle the land side of things quietly."

I looked at him.

"Why are you doing this," I said. "You are Daniel's brother. This land being returned to me hurts your family."

He did not look away.

"Daniel is my brother," he said. "But what he did to your mother was wrong. And what he used Marcus to do to you is worse. I have my own reasons for wanting to see this corrected."

"What reasons," I said.

Something shifted in his face. Small and brief but I caught it.

"Your mother asked me to help you," he said. "That is reason enough."

I wanted to push further. Something told me there was more behind that answer than he was offering. But I had learned in the last two days that some information comes in its own time. Pushing too hard too fast closes doors.

I let it go for now.

I started to put the papers back into the box carefully. Ethan watched me without speaking. When I placed the folded agreement back inside and closed the lid he reached across and put his hand flat on top of the box.

"Leave it here," he said. "I need to photograph everything. I will return it to you by end of week."

I looked at his hand on the box.

Then I looked at him.

"That box is all I have left of her," I said.

His hand did not move but his voice changed. Just slightly. Like something in it softened by a degree.

"I know," he said. "I will treat it accordingly."

I released the box.

I stood and picked up my bag and he stood too. We were close to the same height when I was in heels and for a moment we were just standing on opposite sides of that table looking at each other in the morning light with my mother's whole life sitting in a box between us.

"I will be in touch," he said.

"I know," I said.

I walked to the door.

Behind me he said, "Lena."

I turned.

"Do not speak to Daniel Kingston," he said. "Not under any circumstances. If he contacts you directly do not respond. Call me first."

The way he said it was not dramatic. It was quiet and direct and it carried the kind of weight that made you listen without needing to be told twice.

"Has he contacted me before," I said slowly. "Without me knowing it was him."

Ethan's jaw tightened.

That was all the answer I needed.

I turned back to the door and walked out.

In the elevator going down I stood very still and watched the numbers drop and thought about a man I had never met who had been circling my life for years.

My phone buzzed before I reached the ground floor.

A number I did not recognize.

I thought about what Ethan had just told me.

I let it ring out.

But when the elevator doors opened and I stepped into the lobby my phone buzzed again.

This time it was a message.

It said. Hello Lena. This is your father in law. I think it is time we had a conversation. Just the two of us.