Chapter 6 - WHY TERESA WANTED THE HOUSE
For weeks, I assumed greed.
Then the financial records revealed desperation.
Teresa had debts.
More than I knew.
Credit cards.
A personal loan.
Money owed to Betsy.
And something bigger.
She had guaranteed a failed business venture Mason started two years earlier.
Balance still owed:
Almost $180,000.
Mason had been trying to refinance.
Teresa had very little property in her own name.
My house was worth nearly $720,000.
With substantial equity.
Suddenly the draft trust made sense.
If the house could be placed into a “family trust” under Teresa’s control, they imagined it could become leverage.
Maybe collateral.
Maybe bargaining power.
Maybe security for refinancing.
Their exact legal plan was messy.
But they had one belief in common:
Because I was Teresa’s son, what I owned was family property.
Amy?
Temporary.
Frederick?
An heir.
Me?
A source of income.
That was the structure.
And the party was the perfect display of it.
Twenty relatives eating food bought with money I sent.
In a house Teresa had begun calling hers.
While my wife scrubbed dishes.
My sick baby in her arms.
It had not been random cruelty.
May you like
It was ownership performed in public.
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