I didn’t say anything for a long moment.
I just stood there doing the math nobody in that room seemed interested in doing out loud.
A thirty-five-year-old man.
A seventy-eight-year-old widow.
A paid-off house and not much else to her name.
It didn’t take a genius to see where this was headed.
I tried, more than once, to talk her out of it.
Sat across from her at that same kitchen table.
Laid out every reason it made no sense.
She just patted my hand.
“Trust me,” she said.
Every single time.
“Everything is fine.”
I went after Daniel directly, eventually.
Cornered him in the driveway one afternoon while Grandma was inside.
Told him plainly.
If he was after her house, he’d regret ever meeting our family.
He didn’t get defensive.
He just looked at me, calm as anything.
“I understand why you’re worried,” he said.
“But I love Margaret.”
I nearly laughed in his face.
Love, at forty-three years apart.
I wasn’t buying a single word of it.
I called my father that same night.
