Antique rose canes climbed the trellis.
Pink and cream blossoms covered the southern bed.
In the next photograph, the bulldozer’s bucket was already beneath the roots.
I had to turn away from the screen.
Roman waited.
“I’m all right,” I said.
“No,” he replied gently.
“You are functioning.
That is not the same thing.”
It was the first time anyone had allowed those two truths to be separate.
The hearing took place while my parents were in Italy.
They appeared on video from a bright hotel room.
Dad wore a resort shirt and sat near an open balcony.
Mom kept glancing toward the view as though the proceeding were an inconvenience between breakfast and sightseeing.
Their attorney argued that they were established occupants and that Dad’s knee condition made immediate relocation difficult.
Roman did not mock the medical claim.
He presented dates.
Two rent-free years.
Repeated written requests to contribute.
The destruction of property without permission.
The intrusion into my office.
The shove witnessed by eight professionals.
The plan to pressure me into changing the deed.
Then he played part of the recording.
Dad’s own voice entered the courtroom.
“The office will make a good cigar room.”
Mom’s voice followed.
“Wait until after Italy.
She’ll be desperate to keep the peace.”
Then Dad laughed.
“She’s stupid enough to let us stay.”
On the screen, my mother’s face lost its color.
Dad leaned toward his camera.
“That recording is manipulated.”
Roman asked whether the conversation had occurred.
Dad said no.
Roman played another section in which Dad complained about the exact irrigation timer he had called me to fix.
The model number matched the equipment beside the new putting green.
The call log matched the time.
My saved recording began while the original phone connection was still active.
Dad changed his answer.
“It was private family talk.”
That contradiction did more than Roman’s argument could have done.
My mother tried next.
“We were joking.
Skyler has always been sensitive.”
Roman displayed the photographs of the garden before and after the bulldozer.
“Was the demolition also a joke?”
Mom looked at Dad.
Dad attacked me instead.
He said I was unstable, lonely, ungrateful, and incapable of managing the house.
He said parents had natural authority over their children regardless of whose name appeared on a deed.
He said the property would eventually belong to family anyway.
The more he spoke, the clearer the plan became.
He did not believe he had temporary housing rights.
He believed I was temporary.
