The line went quiet.
For once, Mark did not immediately defend her.
I continued.
“She planned this reunion after I told her no.
She brought movers.
She expected forty-seven people at the gate to pressure me into opening it.
And she presented paperwork claiming I gave her six months in a property I own by myself.”
Mark lowered his voice.
“Six months?”
Apparently, Paige had not told him that part either.
“No,” he said.
“She told us she needed to leave some things there after the weekend.”
That was the first crack in Paige’s version of events.
The second came ten minutes later.
My mother called again.
Her anger was gone.
“Did you really never sign anything?”
“No.”
“Paige said you offered her the place months ago.”
“I didn’t.”
Mom was quiet.
I could see her on the camera looking toward Paige, who was now arguing with the property manager through the gate.
Then Mom said, “She told us you were being difficult because Ethan didn’t want your side of the family there.”
I looked at Ethan.
He heard it through the speaker.
Of course Paige had blamed him.
He was convenient.
The outsider husband.
The man who had noticed what I had spent years excusing.
The man whose daughter they treated as optional.
“This was my decision,” I said.
“Ethan didn’t make it.”
Mom sighed.
“We all thought the beach house was supposed to be for family.”
That sentence hurt more than I expected.
Not because of the house.
Because Milo was sitting six feet away.
I lowered my voice.
“You know what Milo was told the last time she stayed there?”
Mom said nothing.
“That the real cousins got the beds first.”
“Bella, kids say stupid things.”
“And adults teach them which stupid things feel safe to say.”
She tried to interrupt.
I didn’t let her.
“You want to call it the family house when you need my property.
But when my daughter wants to belong to that same family, suddenly everyone is confused about the definition.”
Milo looked down at her hands.
I wished she had not heard it.
But maybe hiding the truth had protected everyone except her.
Outside the gate, Paige had begun knocking hard against the metal pedestrian entrance.
The guard stepped back and raised one hand, warning her away.
My property manager called again.
“She’s refusing to leave.”
“Call whoever you normally call when someone refuses to leave private property,” I said.
That eventually brought a sheriff’s deputy to Seagrass Lane.
