There was a pause.
I heard the familiar throat-clearing sound my dad makes when he’s nervous.
“Well,” he said slowly, “actually… my in-laws put the house in Lucy’s name before they passed away.”
Boom.
If I could’ve freeze-framed Tracy’s face and hung it in a museum, I would’ve. She went from smug to confused to pale in ten seconds.
“What do you mean,” she hissed into the phone, “they put it in her name? When were you going to tell me this?”
“I didn’t think it was that important,” Dad said lamely.
She hung up on him.
Just like that. Thumb stabbed the red button. Phone thunked onto the table.
She turned back to me, eyes wide, breathing shallow.
“This… this has to be some sort of mistake,” she sputtered. “They wouldn’t do that. Not without…”
She trailed off because even she knew how pathetic it sounded.
I folded my arms.
“No mistake,” I said. “They didn’t trust you. They trusted me. So, about that rent…”
I slept like a baby that night for the first time in years.
No, scratch that. I slept like a cat who’d just knocked something expensive off a shelf and sauntered away without looking back.
But if I’ve learned anything from living with Tracy, it’s that people like her don’t go quietly.