I asked the title agent who the other person was, but she said she couldn’t tell me. She could only tell me that the second deed had been notarized at a hospital, eleven days after the first one was filed. I knew my father had been in the hospital that year, but I had never heard anything about another deed. Then she told me the date it had been notarized, and I remembered exactly what had happened that week.
I went home and searched through the papers my father had left behind. Buried inside an old folder was a hospital visitor receipt with the same date, along with a note in my father’s handwriting that simply said, “Do not let him see the original.” I didn’t know who “him” was, but the name on the second deed suddenly felt much less random. Then I found an envelope addressed to my brother that had never been opened.
Inside was a photocopy of the second deed and a handwritten page from my father. He had apparently known exactly what my brother was trying to do, and he had left instructions for what should happen if the deed was ever discovered. The final line was only seven words long, but it explained why my father had deliberately left the house to me…
