“Heard about what happened. Wish I’d done it first. Call me when you can.”
I stared at it for a while.
Smiled, then opened my laptop, pulled up a few files, scanned through some PDFs because cancing the autopay wasn’t the only string I could cut.
The mortgage might have been in my name, but the deed, that was something they never even thought to check.
It had been years since I’d looked at it.
Honestly, I’d forgotten it was still under my name.
I only remembered because of a conversation I’d had with my lawyer last year when I was doing some estate planning.
He’d asked me, “Do you want to transfer the house to your parents officially or keep the title under your name and treat it like a rental property?”
At the time, I brushed it off.
I told him, “It’s just easier this way. I pay for it anyway.”
I hadn’t realized how important that decision would become.
I logged into the county records portal, typed in the address, and sure enough, it was still there.
Owner: Alexander Monroe.
No leans, no transfers, just my name etched into the system like a quiet secret none of them had bothered to uncover.
They lived there for 5 years now.
5 years in the house.
I bought them when mom got sick. When dad’s pension was drying up, when Mike’s fourth failed business had just chewed through the last of the family fund, I was making more money than I knew what to do with and they needed help.
It was supposed to be temporary, just until they got back on their feet.
But temporary turned into expected, then permanent, then somehow owed.
They decorated the house like it was theirs.
Painted over the original colors I’d picked.
Replaced furniture without asking.
Hosted parties.
Gave tours.
Told people they worked hard their whole lives to afford it.
Not once did they mention me.
Not once did I hear my name.
But now.
Now.
I held the one thing they didn’t realize they’d given up.
Control.
The deed wasn’t just paper.
It was leverage.
I stared at it for a long time.
My cursor hovered over the download button.
I thought about printing it, mailing it, leaving a little post-it on it that said, “check the fine print,” but I didn’t.
Not yet.
Instead, I called Lisa.
She picked up on the second ring.