Chapter 3 - The Room
By the time we reached the house, one of Chloe's contractors had already unscrewed the balcony doors from their brass hinges.
I walked in through the front door without knocking.
That was the first thing Gwendolyn objected to.
"Excuse me?"
She came out of the kitchen wearing linen pants and an expression of pure offense.
"You don't live here anymore."
My father closed the door behind us.
"Gwen. Stop."
She turned toward him.
"Don't you tell me to stop when she barges into my home-"
"Half of it is hers."
The sentence landed so cleanly that even I needed a second to absorb it.
Gwendolyn stared at him.
"What did you say?"
My father looked exhausted.
"Half the house belongs to Paige. Legally. It has since Rebecca died."
My mother's name made Gwendolyn's face tighten.
Upstairs, a drill started whining.
I didn't wait.
I took the stairs two at a time.
Chloe was standing in the middle of my bedroom with a phone on a tripod and three paint cans lined up near the wall.
The built-in bookcase my mother had designed was covered with painter's tape.
My desk sat crooked in the hallway.
One contractor held a pry bar near the baseboard.
"Stop," I said.
He looked at Chloe.
"We're stopping," I repeated.
Chloe crossed her arms.
"Mom said it's fine."
"It's not."
"You left."
"That does not make this room yours."
"You have another house."
I looked at her.
She knew.
Of course she knew. My father had probably told Gwendolyn before we even left the coffee shop.
"That also doesn't make this room yours."
The contractor lowered the pry bar.
"Ma'am, do you own the property?"
"Half."
Chloe laughed once.
"That's ridiculous."
I pulled the photo of the deed up on my phone and held it out.
Her laughter stopped.
Behind me, Gwendolyn appeared in the doorway.
She did not look at the phone.
She looked at my father.
"You told me Rebecca left Paige a college fund."
"She did."
"You told me the house was ours."
"I said it was our home."
"Don't play word games with me, Samuel."
Her voice cracked on his name.
That surprised me.
I had heard Gwendolyn angry hundreds of times.
I had rarely heard her hurt.
My father gripped the stair rail.
"I should have told you clearly."
"Clearly?" She laughed without humor. "I've spent nine years paying for repairs, hosting holidays, replacing flooring, planting a garden, acting like this was our life, and now you tell me your daughter owns half of it?"
"You lived here without a mortgage."
The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Gwendolyn turned toward me.
"And there she is."
I felt the old reflex immediately.
Apologize.
Smooth it over.
Keep the peace.
I swallowed it.
"That was unfair," I said. "I'm angry. It was still unfair."
Gwendolyn looked almost more offended by the apology than the insult.
Chloe stared between us.
The contractor cleared his throat.
"We're going to head out."
No one stopped him.
Within two minutes, the crew had packed their tools and left.
The house felt too quiet afterward.
I stepped into my bedroom.
There were pencil marks on the wall where Chloe had been measuring shelves.
A rectangle of clean paint showed where my framed photo had hung for years.
The room looked like mine and not mine at the same time.
I touched the edge of the built-in bookcase.
My mother had argued with the carpenter over those shelves for three days because she wanted the bottom row deep enough for oversized art books.
I remembered sitting cross-legged on the floor at eight years old while she measured twice and still blamed the tape measure when something came out wrong.
"I didn't know," Chloe said behind me.
I turned.
Her arms were no longer crossed.
"About the house," she added. "I didn't know."
"You knew I said no to the room."
Her chin lifted.
"Mom said you were being dramatic because you already moved out."
"And that made it okay?"
She looked away.
It wasn't an apology.
But it wasn't the smug smile from dinner either.
Gwendolyn stepped into the room.
"Chloe, go downstairs."
"Mom-"
"Please."
Chloe picked up her phone and left.
My father remained in the hallway.
Gwendolyn stared at the empty wall.
"Do you know what it's like," she said, "to live in a house where the dead woman picked every cabinet?"
The question stunned me.
"My mother has a name."
"I know her name. I have lived with her name for nine years. Rebecca liked this tile. Rebecca chose that light. Rebecca hated artificial flowers. Rebecca wanted the roses by the east wall. Every time I changed anything, Samuel told me some version of how Rebecca had done it."
My father shifted behind her.
"Gwen-"
"No. You wanted honesty? Let me be honest. I have never once believed this house was mine. I just didn't know there was a deed proving it."
I stared at her.
Somewhere downstairs, Chloe closed a cabinet too hard.
Gwendolyn continued.
"When Samuel told me you were moving, I thought maybe one room could stop being a memorial. Chloe wanted the light. I wanted one room in this house not to belong to Rebecca."
"So you gave me twenty-four hours to disappear."
Her jaw tightened.
"I was angry."
"So was I. I didn't threaten to erase your daughter."
That hit.
She turned away.
My father finally stepped into the room.
"This is my fault."
Gwendolyn laughed bitterly.
"That's convenient now."
"No. It's late. That's different."
He looked at me.
"I told Gwen we'd talk to you about the room after you moved. Then I kept putting it off because I knew you'd say no. I told Chloe it would probably work out."
I felt my anger shift.
Not disappear.
Shift.
"So they thought you had already decided."
He nodded.
"I made promises to everyone and then stayed quiet when the promises collided."
Gwendolyn's eyes filled, but she blinked the tears away before they fell.
"You let me look like the monster."
"You gave the ultimatum," I said.
She looked at me sharply.
"And he built the room around it."
Neither statement canceled the other.
That was the part I hated most.
I wanted a clean villain.
I wanted my father weak, Gwendolyn cruel, Chloe spoiled, me finally finished with all of them.
Instead, I was standing in a half-painted bedroom surrounded by four people who had each been telling themselves a different version of the same family.
I picked up the framed photograph from the floor.
My mother and me at Sedona when I was ten.
"Nothing else gets changed in this room until we decide what happens with the house," I said.
Gwendolyn opened her mouth.
I held up a hand.
"I'm not evicting anyone. I'm not calling a realtor today. I'm not trying to punish Chloe. But I'm also not pretending I don't own half this property because that makes everyone more comfortable."
My father nodded.
"Okay."
Gwendolyn looked at him.
Then at me.
"And what exactly are we supposed to do?"
I didn't know.
That was the truth.
So I said it.
"Figure out what each of us actually wants before somebody makes another decision for everybody else."
For once, nobody argued.
I carried my mother's photograph downstairs.
At the front door, Chloe called my name.
I turned.
She was standing near the kitchen, holding one of the paint swatches.
"Did you really buy a house in Paradise Valley?"
The question was so ordinary I almost laughed.
"Yes."
"Like... a real house?"
"As opposed to a pretend one?"
Her mouth twitched.
Then she looked toward the stairs.
"Can I see it sometime?"
I should have said no.
It would have been easier.
Instead, I heard myself say, "Maybe."
Driving back toward the hillside, I realized something I hadn't expected.
Leaving had been simple.
Deciding what came after leaving was going to be much harder.
I stayed another twenty minutes after declaring the room off-limits.
Not because I wanted to.
Because there were still objects in the hallway and I did not trust anyone's judgment while tempers were that high.
Chloe helped me carry my mother's writing desk back inside.
It was heavier than it looked.
Halfway through the doorway, she lost her grip.
"Ow."
"Don't drop it."
"That is extremely motivating, Paige."
"Lift from the bottom."
"You sound like a divorced dad at Home Depot."
Despite myself, I laughed.
We set the desk against the wall.
Then Chloe noticed the pencil line under the window trim.
"What's that?"
I crouched.
There, in faded graphite, was PAIGE 9 - 4'5" in my mother's handwriting.
Below it were three more marks.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
The last one had been made six months before she got sick.
Chloe touched the wall without quite touching the writing.
"I didn't know that was there."
"Neither did I. I forgot."
For a second, all the legal language in the house vanished.
No fifty percent.
No beneficiary deed.
Just four pencil lines.
"I'm not painting over that," Chloe said.
I looked at her.
"Even if the room becomes yours someday?"
She made a face.
"Can we not do someday today?"
It was the first boundary either of us had set that did not feel like a weapon.
"Fair," I said.
Downstairs, Gwendolyn and my father were still arguing in low voices.
Chloe sat on the edge of the bare mattress.
"Do you hate me?"
The question was so blunt I almost pretended not to hear it.
"No."
"You don't like me."
"Sometimes I don't like you. That's different."
She nodded as if that answer made more sense than reassurance would have.
"Sometimes I don't like you either."
"Excellent. Healthy foundation."
May you like
Her mouth twitched.
Then we heard Gwendolyn call her name, and the moment closed.
