Mortgage payments.
Taxes.
Insurance.
Repairs.
Family loans that were never repaid.
“You’ve had six years.”
Silence.
Then Ryan joined the call.
“You’re seriously going to let Mom and Dad lose the house?”
I asked one question.
“How much are you paying?”
He hung up.
That evening, Dad came to my apartment.
He looked exhausted.
“I didn’t know how much you were covering,” he said.
“You never asked.”
He sat down.
Then he said something I never expected.
“Your mother told me you wanted control of the house. She said that was why you kept paying.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
Dad looked ashamed.
“She said you wanted the house eventually, so the payments were basically an investment.”
A chill went through me.
I had never said that.
Not once.
Then Dad handed me an envelope.
Inside was a photocopy of a handwritten agreement.
My name appeared at the bottom.
So did a signature resembling mine.
The document claimed I had agreed to pay the mortgage indefinitely in exchange for inheriting the house.
I looked at him.
“I never signed this.”
