Chapter 3 - The House That Was Never Hers
The phone felt heavy in my hand.
Not because of what Rebecca had said.
Because of what she hadn't explained.
"Luca, you need to leave your house immediately. Wendy was never trying to take your mother's property..."
Her voice was tense.
Urgent.
Almost afraid.
"She was trying to hide who already owned it."
I looked through the kitchen doorway.
Wendy was standing there.
Watching me.
She couldn't hear Rebecca through the phone, but she could read my face.
And for the first time since I walked through that door, Wendy looked uncertain.
"Who owns it?" I asked.
There was silence on the other end.
Then Rebecca lowered her voice.
"Not your mother."
My fingers tightened around the phone.
"What does that mean?"
"It means you need to stop asking questions where Wendy can hear you."
I glanced at my wife.
She immediately looked away.
A person who had nothing to hide would have demanded answers.
Wendy didn't.
She was waiting.
Waiting to see how much I knew.
"Rebecca, I'm standing in my house right now."
"No, Luca."
Her voice became sharper.
"You're standing in Wendy's house."
The words hit harder than I expected.
Because that was impossible.
My mother bought this house before I was born.
She worked for thirty years to pay for it.
Every childhood memory I had existed inside those walls.
The marks on the hallway where I measured my height.
The kitchen table where my mother helped me with homework.
The small backyard where she planted flowers because she said every home needed something beautiful.
How could it not belong to her?
"Explain."
"I can't explain everything over the phone."
"Then come here."
"I already did."
I froze.
"What?"
Rebecca exhaled.
"I'm outside."
I turned toward the front window.
The driveway was dark.
A black sedan was parked near the gate.
I hadn't noticed it when I came home.
"Why didn't you come inside?"
"Because I saw Wendy."
My stomach tightened.
"Rebecca."
"Listen carefully. Do not let Wendy know I am here until I tell you."
The call ended.
I stared at the phone.
Then I looked at Wendy.
She smiled slightly.
A fake smile.
The kind people wear when they are trying to convince themselves they are still in control.
"Was that important?"
I put my phone away.
"Very."
She walked closer.
"You know, Luca, I really hoped you would trust me."
I almost laughed.
"Trust you?"
"Yes."
She pointed upstairs.
"Your mother needs professional help. She is confused. She doesn't understand paperwork anymore."
I studied her.
"Then why did you hide the documents?"
Her face changed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
"I didn't hide anything."
"You took them."
"No."
"Mom said you did."
Wendy rolled her eyes.
"Your mother says a lot of things."
I felt anger rise inside me.
But I controlled it.
Because anger was exactly what people like Wendy expected.
They wanted emotional reactions.
They wanted shouting.
They wanted mistakes.
I had spent years learning something simple.
The person who stays calm usually sees more.
"I want the original documents."
She crossed her arms.
"They're not here."
"Where are they?"
"Safe."
"Where?"
She didn't answer.
That silence told me everything.
I walked toward the stairs.
"Luca."
I stopped.
Her voice changed.
The softness disappeared.
"Don't make this worse."
I slowly turned around.
"For who?"
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Wendy smiled.
But there was no warmth behind it.
"You really think you understand what happened?"
"No."
I looked at her.
"I think I haven't even seen the worst part yet."
Her expression hardened.
And that was when I knew I was right.
There was something bigger.
Something she was protecting.
I went upstairs to my mother's room.
She was awake.
Waiting.
"Is she gone?"
The question surprised me.
"Who?"
"Rebecca."
I stopped.
"How do you know Rebecca is here?"
My mother's face changed.
She looked frightened.
"She came before."
"When?"
"Yesterday."
I sat beside her.
"Mom, start from the beginning."
She looked down at her hands.
"I made a mistake."
"What mistake?"
"I trusted her."
"Wendy?"
She nodded.
"But not because she was kind."
I waited.
"Because she reminded me of you."
That hurt.
My mother continued.
"At first, she was wonderful. She cooked for me. She helped me organize my medicine. She told me I was like a second mother to her."
I listened carefully.
"Then she started changing things."
"What things?"
"Small things."
She counted on her fingers.
"She moved my bank statements."
"She answered my phone calls."
"She told neighbors I was becoming forgetful."
My jaw tightened.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
My mother looked ashamed.
"Because she told me you were stressed."
I closed my eyes.
There it was again.
The isolation.
"She said your work was difficult. She said you couldn't handle another problem."
My hands curled into fists.
"And you believed her?"
My mother looked at me.
"I believed that you loved me."
That sentence broke something inside me.
Because she wasn't saying she believed Wendy.
She was saying she didn't want to become a burden.
I held her hand.
"You will never be a burden."
She nodded.
Then she whispered:
"There is something else."
"What?"
"Wendy didn't want the house."
I looked at her.
"What do you mean?"
"She wanted something hidden inside it."
The room suddenly felt colder.
"What was hidden?"
My mother shook her head.
"I don't know."
"Mom."
"I'm serious."
She looked toward the door.
"She kept asking about your father's old things."
My father's name hadn't been spoken in years.
He died when I was sixteen.
A heart attack.
At least that's what I believed.
"What things?"
"His documents."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
My mother looked nervous.
"But she was angry when I said I threw them away."
I stood.
"Did you?"
She hesitated.
"No."
My heart started beating faster.
"Where are they?"
She pointed toward the closet.
"Behind the old wooden box."
I opened the closet.
There were old blankets.
Books.
Pictures.
Memories from another life.
Behind everything sat a small wooden box covered in dust.
I pulled it out.
The lock was broken.
Inside were old papers.
Photographs.
A watch.
And an envelope.
My name was written on it.
Luca.
Not in Wendy's handwriting.
Not my mother's.
My father's.
I stared at it.
My father had been dead for fourteen years.
Why had he left something for me?
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a single piece of paper.
Only one sentence.
"Never let Wendy find out what your mother knows."
I stopped breathing.
I read it again.
Then again.
My mother saw my face.
"What does it say?"
I didn't answer.
Because suddenly every strange moment from the last few months connected.
Wendy asking about old documents.
Wendy pushing my mother to sign papers.
Wendy controlling what my mother ate.
This wasn't about money.
It was about something my father had hidden.
Something he believed Wendy would search for.
I picked up the old photographs.
Most were normal.
Family vacations.
Birthdays.
School events.
Then I found one photo that made my hands freeze.
It showed my father standing beside another woman.
A woman I had never seen before.
On the back of the photo, my father's handwriting appeared.
Three words.
"She knows everything."
My phone vibrated.
Another message.
Unknown number.
I opened it.
A picture appeared.
It was a photo of Wendy.
Standing inside this house.
But the photo wasn't recent.
It was dated fourteen years ago.
The same year my father died.
Underneath the picture was one sentence.
"Ask your wife why she was already here the night your father disappeared."
I stared at the screen.
Then I heard something downstairs.
A door opening.
Slowly.
Someone was coming up the stairs.
I turned off the phone.
My mother's eyes widened.
"Luca..."
"What?"
She pointed toward the hallway.
"She wasn't supposed to come upstairs."
The footsteps stopped outside the bedroom.
The doorknob began to turn.
May you like
And then...
The door opened from the outside.
