I woke the next morning with the folder still on the kitchen table.
I must have taken it out again during the night.
I didn't remember doing it.
The papers were stacked neatly, but one corner had curled beneath the weight of my notebook.
I straightened it.
Then I made coffee.
I had decided that I would give Cullen one opportunity to explain himself without interruption.
Not because he deserved endless chances.
Because I wanted to know that I had done everything I reasonably could before making any decisions about our relationship.
I had spent too many years confusing patience with silence.
I wasn't going to do that again.
At nine o'clock, I called him.
He didn't answer.
At nine fifteen, I sent a message asking him to call me when he was available.
He replied almost immediately.
I'm busy this morning. I'll call later.
I read the message twice.
Then I placed the phone beside the folder.
I had no intention of chasing him around his schedule.
If he could find time to discuss my property with other people, he could find time to discuss it with me.
I spent the morning taking care of small things around the house.
I watered the plants.
I changed the sheets.
I emptied the dishwasher.
Every so often, I glanced at my phone.
I was annoyed with myself for doing it.
At noon, it rang.
Cullen.
I answered.
"Can we please talk about something else for once?"
That was how he began.
Not with an explanation.
Not with an apology.
With a complaint about the conversation he had yet to have.
"We can talk about anything you like after you answer my question."
He exhaled.
"Mom, I've already told you that you're misunderstanding the situation."
"Then help me understand it."
He said there had been discussions about the future of the beach house.
I agreed.
There had been discussions.
He had asked questions, and I had answered them.
But I had never agreed to transfer ownership.
I reminded him of that.
"Nobody said you signed something yesterday."
"Then when did I sign it?"
He didn't answer.
I could hear a television playing somewhere in the background.
Perhaps he was at home.
Perhaps he was in a car or an office.
I couldn't tell.
"Cullen, did you tell Miles that I had transferred the property to you?"
"I told him the arrangements were in progress."
"That's not what he told me."
"Then Miles misunderstood."
"Did you show him a deed?"
He sighed again.
"Yes, I showed him something."
The words landed harder than I expected.
I gripped the phone.
"What did you show him?"
"It was paperwork related to the house."
"What paperwork?"
"Mom, I don't have every document memorized."
I looked at the folder on the table.
Every document I had ever signed concerning the property was there, or had been preserved with the attorney.
I knew what I had signed.
I knew what I hadn't.
"Was it a deed transferring the house to you?"
He didn't answer directly.
Instead, he began talking about the future.
He said he and Blythe had been making plans.
He said her family had been asking questions.
He said everyone had assumed the property would eventually be part of his inheritance.
I listened without interrupting.
There was a difference between expecting to inherit something someday and claiming it belonged to you now.
I wanted him to understand that difference.
"An inheritance is not a transfer," I said.
"You're acting as though I'm trying to steal something from you."
"I'm asking what you told Miles."
"Because you don't trust me."
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
He had taken a question about his actions and turned it into a judgment about his character.
I knew that trick because I had allowed it to work for years.
Whenever I questioned something he had done, I found myself defending my love for him instead of getting an answer.
Not this time.
"I love you, Cullen. That has nothing to do with whether I trust what you're telling me."
He made a small sound of frustration.
"Then why are you treating me like this?"
"Like what?"
"Like I'm some stranger trying to take your house."
I looked at the papers again.
"I don't know what you're trying to do. That's why I'm asking."
Silence.
For a moment, I thought he might finally tell me the truth.
Instead, he said he had to go.
I asked him to send me a copy of whatever he had shown Miles.
He refused.
He said the document wasn't something I needed to worry about.
I repeated the request.
He told me I was making a simple family matter unnecessarily complicated.
Then he hung up.
I sat at the table for several minutes.
I felt the familiar urge to call him back and smooth everything over.
I wanted to tell him that I hadn't meant to upset him.
I wanted to reassure him that I still loved him.
I wanted to make the tension disappear.
But I hadn't created the tension.
I had merely stopped pretending it wasn't there.
I left the phone where it was.
That afternoon, I called my attorney.
I explained the conversation and told her Cullen had refused to provide a copy of the document.
She asked me to write down what I remembered while the details were fresh.
I did.
I recorded his admission that he had shown Miles paperwork.
I recorded his statement that the arrangements were in progress.
I recorded his refusal to send me a copy.
I didn't embellish anything.
I didn't guess what the document was.
I wrote down only what I knew.
The attorney told me that the next step was to establish the facts through the appropriate records and documentation.
She reminded me that I should not rely on anyone's description of a legal document when the document itself could be examined.
I agreed.
After we ended the call, I put my notebook away.
I wasn't interested in winning an argument.
I wanted the truth.
For the next two days, Cullen didn't contact me.
I didn't call him either.
It was the longest silence we had shared since the wedding.
I found myself thinking about how much of our relationship had depended on my willingness to be the first person to reach out.
If he was upset, I called.
If he was distant, I sent a message.
If he said something hurtful, I waited a little while and tried again.
I had convinced myself that this was what a good mother did.
Perhaps sometimes it was.
But there had to be a limit.
I couldn't keep repairing a relationship while the other person refused to acknowledge what was breaking it.
On the third day, Blythe called.
Her name appeared on my screen while I was preparing lunch.
I considered letting it go to voicemail.
Then I answered.
"Hello, Blythe."
"Hi. Do you have a minute?"
"Yes."
She sounded composed.
I could hear the faint clink of dishes behind her.
"I think there's been a misunderstanding about the beach house."
I set the knife down.
"What misunderstanding?"
"Cullen told me that you were upset about the arrangements."
"What arrangements?"
"The property."
I waited.
She continued.
"Cullen said you had agreed that the house would eventually be ours, and he thought the paperwork was being handled."
I stared at the kitchen counter.
Eventually be ours.
Those were not the same words Miles had used, but they were close enough to make my stomach tighten.
"I never agreed to transfer the house to Cullen."
She was quiet for a moment.
"But you discussed it with him, didn't you?"
"We discussed many things. We discussed the house. We discussed what might happen in the future. We never agreed that it belonged to him."
"That's not how Cullen understood it."
"Then Cullen misunderstood."
She sighed softly.
I recognized the sound.
It was the sound people made when they believed someone else was being unreasonable.
"I don't think he would deliberately misrepresent something like this."
I looked at the folder on the table.
"He told Miles the transfer had been completed."
"I don't know exactly what he told Miles."
"Neither do I. That's the problem."
She didn't respond.
I could have asked her whether she thought I was lying.
I could have reminded her that I had raised Cullen and knew his habits better than she did.
Instead, I kept my voice calm.
"I want to be very clear. I have not transferred the beach house to Cullen. I have not authorized him to represent that it belongs to him."
Blythe said she understood.
But her tone suggested she believed the disagreement could still be settled by persuading me to change my mind.
She explained that she and Cullen had been making plans for their future.
They had discussed the house with her family.
They had imagined spending time there.
They had assumed the property would remain available to them.
I listened.
Then I asked a question I had been avoiding.
"Why did you think it was appropriate to exclude me from the wedding while making plans for my home?"
The silence was immediate.
I hadn't raised my voice.
I hadn't insulted her.
I had simply connected two things she seemed determined to keep separate.
She finally answered.
"The wedding was a separate issue."
"Was it?"
"Yes. We wanted a certain kind of event."
"I understand that now."
She said the decision had been difficult.
I almost laughed.
It hadn't sounded difficult when Cullen told me.
He had been perfectly clear that I didn't fit the event they wanted.
I didn't say that aloud.
Instead, I asked whether she believed I had the right to decide what happened to my own property.
"Of course you do."
"Then we agree on the important part."
She sounded uncomfortable.
She said she hoped we could all move forward.
I told her I hoped so too.
But moving forward could not mean pretending that I had signed something I hadn't signed.
We ended the call politely.
I returned to my lunch.
My hands were trembling slightly as I picked up the knife again.
I was beginning to see how the story had spread.
Cullen had told one person something.
That person had accepted it.
Blythe had heard a version that made it sound like a family arrangement.
Somewhere along the way, an expectation had become a fact in their minds.
And now I was the person standing in the way of something they believed was already theirs.
That evening, I went through the property folder once more.
I checked every signature.
I checked the dates.
I checked the copies of the documents that had been prepared after my husband's death.
Nothing showed a completed transfer to Cullen.
I called the attorney the following morning.
She explained that she would continue verifying the relevant records and reviewing the paperwork connected to my ownership.
She also suggested that I keep future conversations about the property as clear and factual as possible.
No vague promises.
No casual agreements.
No assumptions.
I thanked her.
Then I wrote a short note for myself and placed it inside the folder.
The house remains mine. I have not agreed to transfer it.
I read the sentence twice.
It looked almost childish.
But it was true.
For years, I had assumed that my son understood the difference between what I owned and what I might someday leave him.
I had assumed that love made such things obvious.
I now understood that assumptions were not enough.
That afternoon, Cullen finally sent me a message.
We need to talk in person.
I stared at the screen.
I wanted to believe that he had decided to be honest.
I wanted to believe he was ready to explain the document.
But I no longer wanted to enter a conversation without knowing what I needed to say.
I replied that we could meet the following day.
I told him I wanted the discussion to be about the property and the document he had shown Miles.
His answer came a few minutes later.
Fine.
Just that.
I placed the phone beside the folder.
Then I closed the drawer.
I wasn't looking forward to seeing my son.
But I was no longer afraid of asking him a question he didn't want to answer.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: When Cullen Finally Sat Across From Me, I Realized He Was More Worried About Losing His Plans Than About the Damage He Had Done
My Son Wanted the Benefits of Having a Mother, but When His Wedding Day Came, I Was No Longer Good Enough to Be Seen Beside Him
Part 5 of 20
