The Pages From My Shower Revealed What My Husband Wanted

"Don't sign anything," Inez Vale said. "Send me every page."

I photographed the papers on Aunt Lorna's kitchen table. Then I sent the payment records and the picture Rosa had taken of the screen.

Inez had handled my aunt's estate. She knew why the building mattered.

Lorna had bought it after years of running a laundry pickup route. She leased the ground floor to the Lantern Supper Board for a small rent. The board paid Celia to run meals and hall bookings.

The apartment was Lorna's home. Now it was mine.

"Did Evan give your mother-in-law the ownership notice?" Inez asked.

"He said he did."

I found the email I had sent him months before. The deed was attached. My message said, Please make sure the board and Celia have this.

His reply was one word.

Handled.

Inez was quiet while she read.

"These pages would give Evan control of your interest in the building," she said. "The debt release is the cover page."

"Could he sell it?"

"He's asking you to give him the power to try. We'll deal with the wording at my office. Right now, keep the originals."

I put them in my work bag.

Evan came upstairs at dusk carrying a plate of cake.

"You should eat."

"Did your mother know I own this place?"

He placed the cake beside the sink.

"She knows it came through your aunt."

"Did she know it came to me?"

"That's a different question."

I waited.

"She thinks the estate is still sorting things out," he said.

"Because you told her that?"

He rubbed his neck.

"She worked here for years. I didn't want her feeling pushed aside."

I thought of my bedroom on that screen.

"What was the eight hundred twenty-five for?"

"The reserve. Like we agreed."

"Then why did you let her call it unpaid rent?"

He pulled out a chair.

"Mom borrowed against a few things. She's under pressure. A sale would solve it. We could buy a smaller place."

"What sale?"

He stared at the cake.

I asked again.

"There's interest from a storage company. Nothing's signed."

"You put our daughter's room on a screen to make me sign."

"I didn't put it there."

"You brought the pen."

He had no answer to that.

Rosa arrived with a canvas bag and stayed while I packed for two nights at her house. I took clothes, my pregnancy records, the file box, and the small quilt Lorna had stitched before her hands grew tired.

Evan stood in the doorway.

"People will think we're splitting up."

I lifted my bag.

"I need to know where my money went."

On Sunday morning, Inez met me at her office. She had already asked Evan in writing to preserve all building records and stop making promises about the property.

She also called Walter Bell, the supper board's chair, with my permission.

Walter came over in his church pants, carrying a binder.

"Celia told us you were behind on a housing contribution," he said. "She asked whether the board could forgive it. We never voted on that. We certainly never approved a public display."

I showed him my six payments.

He took off his glasses.

"Those aren't in the board account."

My stomach tightened.

"Evan set up a separate reserve account. I asked him for statements twice. He kept saying he'd bring them."

Walter opened his binder.

"Our bookkeeper has been on leave. We brought in an accountant last week to catch up. There's another matter she's checking."

He slid over a printed list of meal costs.

One line read: BUILDING REPAIRS REIMBURSEMENT. CELIA EVENTS. $18,400.

"That's Celia's party business," I said.

"She said she paid for urgent roof work herself. The board reimbursed her from our building repair savings."

I had been upstairs through every rain that spring. There had been no roof crew.

Inez asked Walter for the supporting papers.

He turned two pages and held one still with his palm.

"The payment had an owner's approval attached," he said. "That's why I thought you knew."

At the bottom of a form dated three weeks earlier was my signature.

Above it, someone had written that I had inspected the finished work and approved the full amount.

I had never seen that form.

Inez set it beside the housing release and looked at me.

"Mae, we need the accountant here tomorrow."