“$1.7 million,” Paul murmured. The number hung in the air like a storm cloud.
“Meadowbrook costs what? Eight thousand a month?”
“Plus the memory care surcharge if she deteriorates,” Natalie replied quickly, her tone entirely transactional, as if discussing the lease on a car. “That’s over a hundred thousand a year. In ten years, she’ll be dead or requiring full-time care anyway. This way, at least some of the money stays in the family. For our future. For the children we want to have. For this farm.”
The words detonated in my chest. This farm?
“This farm?” Paul’s voice rose slightly. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on, Paul,” she scoffed. “Your mother’s been talking about how hard the winter was for years. The property taxes alone are bleeding her dry. She’s got what, maybe fifty thousand in savings? This place is worth at least eight hundred thousand. It’s prime development land, twenty minutes from Richmond. Developers are practically drooling over this county.”
“Mom loves this land,” Paul said, but his voice lacked conviction. “She’d never sell.”
“She won’t have to,” Natalie said softly. Dangerously. “When she can’t manage anymore—and that day is coming, Paul, look at her, she’s forgetting things, she’s losing weight—we step in. We help her transition to somewhere easier. Somewhere safe. And we use the sale to secure our financial future.”
I felt as if the floor was tilting beneath me. My farm. My home. The land Thomas and I had mortgaged ourselves to the bone to purchase in 1982. The place where I’d buried three dogs, planted two dozen fruit trees, and raised children who apparently saw it now as nothing more than a commodity to be liquidated.
“Unless she’s declared incompetent before she can update her will,” Natalie added, delivering the final blow. “With proper legal guardianship, we control the assets. We protect the legacy from being wasted on charity or maintenance for a house one old woman doesn’t need.”
I had perhaps ten seconds before they would see me standing there, frozen in my own home, eavesdropping on a conspiracy that encompassed not just Joanna Bradford’s life, but my own.
I moved. I surprised myself with the speed fear could generate in aging joints. I slipped out the front door, eased it shut with barely a click, and hurried down the driveway toward my car. My hands shook so badly I dropped my keys twice before managing to unlock the door.
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