Chapter 5 - THE WATCH IN THE PAWNSHOP
My mother had told a notary that I approved selling Dad's workshop.
She had supplied my identification.
And she'd done it weeks before Mason destroyed my SUV.
The realization hurt more than watching the glass break.
I had believed Mom was protecting Mason after his temper got out of control.
Now I had to face the possibility that she'd helped create the circumstances long before Sunday.
I thanked Cynthia for telling me what she remembered.
Then I asked her to preserve every message, appointment record, and document related to the deed.
She agreed to cooperate with the investigation.
The following morning, I drove to Mom's house.
There was no need to knock.
I still had the key Dad had given me fifteen years earlier.
But this time, I rang the doorbell.
Mom opened the door wearing her old blue cardigan.
She looked ten years older than she had on Sunday.
“Ethan. Have you heard from Mason?”
“He was released pending his next court appearance.”
She nodded.
“I know. He called Vanessa.”
I stayed on the porch.
“Mom, why did you tell Cynthia Bell that I'd approved the workshop transfer?”
Her face drained of color.
“Who?”
“The notary.”
She lowered her eyes.
“Ethan, I was just helping with paperwork.”
“You gave her a copy of my identification.”
“Mason needed it.”
“You told her I'd signed.”
“He told me you had agreed!”
“Then why didn't you ask me?”
She gripped the doorframe.
I waited.
Finally, she whispered, “Because I was afraid you'd say no.”
There it was.
The simplest truth I'd heard from her in years.
“You knew I hadn't agreed.”
“I knew Mason said you would.”
“Those aren't the same thing.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You don't understand what it's like watching one child lose everything while the other is doing well.”
I stared at her.
“I do understand, Mom. I've watched you treat me like I had nothing to lose for most of my life.”
She flinched.
But I continued.
“Just because I pay my bills doesn't mean my money belongs to Mason. Just because I'm single doesn't mean my life matters less.”
“That's not what I believe.”
“Then why do you keep acting like it is?”
She had no answer.
I took a breath.
“Where's Dad's pocket watch?”
Her expression changed again.
“I have it.”
“Can I see it?”
“It's being cleaned.”
“At what jeweler?”
“Ethan—”
“Mom.”
She sat heavily on the porch bench.
Then she began crying.
“I pawned it.”
I felt something inside me sink.
“How much?”
“Four thousand dollars.”
“For Mason?”
She nodded.
“He needed to make one of the loan payments. I didn't have enough in savings.”
I looked toward the living room window.
Dad's old chair was visible behind the curtain.
He'd spent years teaching us to repair broken things.
Now his family was pawning his possessions to keep its lies together.
“Where?” I asked.
“Franklin Gold and Loan.”
“Do you have the ticket?”
She went inside and returned with a wrinkled receipt.
I took it.
Then I placed the copy of the forged workshop deed on the porch bench.
“This is being investigated, Mom. You need to tell the truth about everything you did.”
She stared at it.
“Will I be arrested?”
“I don't know.”
“Would you let them arrest your own mother?”
I looked at her for a long moment.
“I won't lie to stop them.”
The words seemed to hurt her.
But I couldn't keep carrying the consequences of choices she refused to acknowledge.
That afternoon, I went to the pawnshop.
The owner, a middle-aged man named Frank, remembered my mother.
“She cried when she brought it in,” he said.
I paid the redemption amount and the charges required to release the watch.
Frank placed the small velvet case on the counter.
Inside was Dad's brass pocket watch.
The crystal had a thin crack across one corner.
The minute hand still moved.
I pressed the latch.
The watch opened with the familiar little click I'd heard a thousand times as a child.
Engraved inside the cover were five words.
START WITH WHAT IS TRUE.
Dad had shown me those words when I was twelve.
I'd caught Mason lying about who broke a neighbor's window.
Dad made both of us sit at the kitchen table until the truth came out.
That night, he'd explained that mistakes could be repaired.
Lies made people repair the wrong thing.
I closed the watch.
For the first time since Sunday, I cried.
Not because of my SUV.
Not because of the money.
Because Dad was gone, and I desperately wished I could ask him how our family had gotten here.
When I returned home, Vanessa was waiting beside my front steps.
Her car was parked across the street.
She stood when she saw me.
“Before you tell me to leave, I need five minutes.”
I unlocked the door but didn't invite her in.
“Talk.”
She folded her arms.
“Mason's staying at a motel. I told him not to come home.”
“Why?”
“Because I'm starting to realize how much he's been lying to everybody.”
I studied her.
“You helped him prepare that vehicle agreement.”
“Yes.”
“And you claimed I'd signed it.”
Her chin trembled.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She looked down.
“Because I thought we'd lose the house if you refused.”
“It's not your house.”
“Linda said it would become our family home someday.”
I stared at her.
Mom had apparently been making promises about property she wasn't prepared to lose.
Vanessa wiped her eyes.
“I know you hate me.”
“I don't trust you.”
“That might be worse.”
I said nothing.
She reached into her handbag and removed a folded photograph.
It showed Mason sitting beside a hospital bed.
Vanessa was lying under a white blanket.
Her face was swollen from crying.
“That was after our second miscarriage,” she whispered. “Mason stayed awake with me for two days. He kept telling me we'd have a family.”
I looked at the photograph.
There was no expensive jewelry.
No smug expression.
Just two frightened people holding hands.
“He wasn't always like this,” she said.
“I know.”
“He kept promising the business would recover. Then the bills came. Then the fertility treatments. Then Linda offered the house.”
Her eyes filled.
“I started believing that if we could just get enough money, we'd finally be happy.”
“And you decided to take my car.”
She nodded.
“I was angry at you because you kept saying no to us.”
I waited.
“That wasn't fair,” she whispered.
“No. It wasn't.”
She glanced at Dad's watch in my hand.
“Mason wanted that too.”
My fingers tightened.
“Why?”
“He said it was worth more than Linda could get from the pawnshop.”
I shook my head.
“Of course he did.”
Vanessa took a breath.
“There's something else.”
I looked up.
She showed me a message from a real estate agent.
A buyer had submitted an offer for Dad's workshop.
The price was $369,000.
The message included a proposed closing date.
The following Friday.
Attached was a confirmation that the buyer had already paid a $40,000 deposit into a transaction account designated by Walker Legacy Holdings.
I stared at the screen.
“Mason took money from the buyer?”
Vanessa nodded.
“He said it was a nonrefundable advance.”
“Was it?”
“I don't know anymore.”
My stomach tightened.
The disputed deed might prevent a legitimate closing, but somebody had already handed Mason money based on a sale he had no right to authorize.
I looked at Vanessa.
“Where did that forty thousand go?”
She opened another photograph.
It showed a bank statement from Walker Renovations.
The deposit had arrived on Tuesday.
By Thursday, the account balance was almost zero.
Most of the money had been transferred out in a series of payments.
Then I noticed a line at the bottom.
TRANSFER AUTHORIZED: LINDA WALKER.
I looked up.
May you like
Vanessa's voice was barely audible.
“Ethan, your mother didn't just know about the workshop sale. She was helping Mason move the money.”
