“Making a plan,” she said without looking up. “Your son thinks he’s outsmarted you, Bula. He thinks you’re just a helpless old woman who will do whatever he tells her to do.”
She looked up at me and I saw steel in her eyes.
Tomorrow, we’re going to prove him wrong.
Margaret’s plan was brilliant in its simplicity.
The next morning, she called a real estate attorney she’d known for years. Someone who specialized in property disputes.
“David, it’s Margaret Sullivan. I need a favor for a friend,” she said into the phone, pacing around our small room like a caged tiger. “I have a 70-year-old woman whose son has essentially stolen her house while she’s in temporary care.”
I listened as Margaret explained my situation with the precision of someone who’d spent decades building legal cases.
When she hung up, she was smiling.
David’s going to help us, she said. He’s preparing a cease and desist letter for your son, demanding that he stop renting out your property and return possession to you immediately.
But where would I live if I left here?
The question had been keeping me awake at night.
In your own house, of course.
But Randall said I couldn’t manage on my own.
Margaret sat down beside me on my narrow bed.
Bula, honey, you’ve been managing your own life for 70 years. You spent two months taking care of your sister in Florida. You drove yourself there and back. Does that sound like someone who needs to be in a nursing home?
When she put it that way, it seemed obvious, but the fear was still there, planted by weeks of being told I was helpless.
What if something happens to me? What if I fall or get sick?
What if something happens to anyone? Margaret countered. Your son could get hit by a car tomorrow. That neighbor of yours, Mrs. Patterson, could have a heart attack next week. Living alone doesn’t mean you’re going to die alone. And living with people doesn’t guarantee you’ll be safe.
That afternoon, Margaret and I took a field trip.
She’d arranged for her attorney friend David to pick us up and drive us by my house. I hadn’t been back since the day I was forced to leave, and my heart pounded as we turned onto my street.
The first thing I noticed was the cars.
Four cars parked in my driveway and two more on the street in front of my house.
David pulled over across the street and we sat there watching.
“That’s a lot of cars for a family of two and a dog,” Margaret observed.
As we watched, a young man came out of my front door carrying a laundry basket. He walked around to the back of the house where I could see my old clothes line was now heavy with unfamiliar clothes.
He’s using my clothes line, I said, feeling strangely violated.
That’s the least of it, David said grimly.
He’d been taking photos with his phone.
Margaret told me what’s been happening. But seeing it like this, Mrs. Henderson, your son has turned your family home into a boarding house.
Another young person emerged from the house. This one carrying a grocery bag. Then another and another.
How many people are living in there? I whispered.
At least four tenants, plus your son and daughter-in-law, David said. Maybe more.
I thought about my house, trying to imagine how they’d arranged it.
The living room where Robert and I used to watch the evening news. Where Randall had played with his toy trucks as a little boy. Was it now someone’s bedroom?
What about my sewing room where I’d made Randall’s Halloween costumes and mended his school clothes for years?
This has to be violating housing codes, Margaret said. Single family homes aren’t zoned for this kind of rental activity.
David nodded.
I’ll make some calls tomorrow. But first, we need to establish Mrs. Henderson’s right to reclaim her property.
We drove around the block and came back from the other direction.
This time, I saw Nola in my front yard with Duke, the German Shepherd puppy who’d supposedly needed my big backyard.
Except he wasn’t a puppy anymore. He was nearly fullgrown and he was chained to a post that had been driven into my front lawn.
“That dog is chained up,” I said, feeling sick.
“So much for needing room to run,” Margaret said coldly.
As we watched, Nola went back inside, leaving Duke alone in the yard.
A few minutes later, the dog began barking, and one of the tenants came out and yelled at him to be quiet.
“This is what they destroyed your life for,” Margaret said. a chained dog and rental income.
David drove us back to Sunset Manor, but not before stopping at his office to let me sign the necessary paperwork.