Declan closed his eyes.
“What now?”
“The estate agent provided a copy of the proposed listing agreement this morning.
It identifies you as sole owner.”
Declan looked at me.
“You contacted the agent?”
“The agent contacted the executor after finding a restriction attached to the title search,” the lawyer said.
“What restriction?”
“A notice of disputed ownership filed last week.”
Declan’s gaze remained fixed on me.
“You filed it.”
“Yes.”
“You planned to trap me at this table.”
“No.
You announced the sale at this table.”
He opened his mouth, but no answer came.
The distinction mattered.
I had not created his humiliation.
I had simply refused to hide the truth when he tried to make the lie permanent.
The lawyer explained the immediate consequences.
The house could not be sold until ownership was resolved.
The forged transfer would be challenged in civil court.
Because of the age of the document and Mam’s letter, criminal prosecution was uncertain, but the court could void the transfer, restore my interest, and hold Declan responsible for legal costs.
Declan listened with his arms folded.
When the lawyer finished, he asked, “What does she want?”
He still could not ask me directly.
I answered anyway.
“I want the deed corrected.”
“And then?”
“I want the house appraised.”
“So you can force a sale.”
“No.”
That surprised him.
I told him I would give him the first option to buy my half at a fair, independent valuation.
If he could not or would not do that, we would sell the property together.
Until then, neither of us would remove anything from the house.
He looked around at Mam’s furniture, the framed photographs, Dad’s clock on the mantel.
“You’d sell this place?”
“I would stop pretending it belongs only to you.”
He picked up Mam’s letter again.
For the first time that night, his anger had nowhere useful to go.
The proof was too specific.
The witnesses had heard too much.
Even the room seemed to have withdrawn its loyalty from him.
Aunt Nora stood and carried the potatoes to me.
It was such a small act that an outsider might not have noticed.
She did not pass them around the table.
She placed them directly beside my plate.
Declan noticed.
Of course he did.
He folded Mam’s letter carefully along its original creases and returned it to the envelope.
“I need time,” he said.
“You’ve had thirty-nine years,” I replied.
He flinched, but I kept my voice calm.
“That does not mean I want to destroy you.
It means the lie ends tonight.”
