…transfers back to you.”
Mr. Feldstein turned the agreement around so I could see the page. “Clause eleven. You insisted on it, Margaret. Remember? I told you most mothers don’t bother.”
I did remember. Five years ago my late husband’s sister had lost her home to her own son. I had sat in this very office and said, “Write it so nobody can do that to me.”
The clause said the $320,000 was a conditional gift. In exchange, I held a life estate in the guest suite. If my son ever tried to remove me, sell the property without my consent or deny me access, the gift was void and full title passed to me. He and his wife had both signed every page. Their initials were next to clause eleven.
“He initialed it without reading it,” Mr. Feldstein said. “His wife initialed it too. Then they asked if they could leave early to catch a movie.”
I asked what happened now.
“Now, legally, the eviction notice is their admission that they tried to remove you. I can file the transfer this week.”
I didn’t file it that week. I went home first.
My son and his wife, Brittany, were on the couch going through apartment listings for me — tiny studios on the other side of town. Brittany had already measured the guest suite for a home gym.
I put a copy of the agreement on the coffee table and opened it to clause eleven.
My son read it twice. His face went from red to white. Brittany grabbed the page and read it out loud, slower each time, as if the words might change.
“This can’t be legal,” she said.
“It’s legal. You both signed it. My attorney laughed when he saw the eviction notice. I didn’t.”
My son asked what I wanted. Not apologized. Asked what I wanted. That told me more than anything.
I gave them a choice. They could tear up the notice, sign a new agreement and keep living in the house with me in my suite, exactly as promised. Or I could file the transfer, and they would have thirty days to find somewhere else to live. The same thirty days they had given me.
Brittany said they’d think about it. Three days later I found out why she wanted the guest suite so badly. She had already listed it online as a short-term rental, with photos of my bedroom and my quilt on the bed.
That decided it. I filed.
They moved out on day twenty-nine. My son didn’t speak to me for eight months. Then, one evening, he called. Brittany had left him. The rental income had been going into her own account the whole time.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said. It was the first time he’d said it.
He rents the main house from me now, at a fair price, and he pays on time. I still live in the guest suite. I like it there. It’s quiet, and every month there’s a check on the kitchen counter that reminds both of us who paid for this house.
