Chapter 5 - The House I Bought
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Lorraine huffed and finally left the bedroom, muttering loudly down the hallway that Andrew would "handle" me as soon as he got home. I locked the door behind her, washed my face in the adjoining bathroom, and sat down at the small writing desk under the window. My hands only began to shake when I opened the green folder.
The house we lived in was a beautifully renovated three-bedroom property on a quiet, tree-lined street near the Genesee River. It featured a charming brick fireplace, wide kitchen windows, and a small garden where I enthusiastically planted tomatoes every summer.
Our friends and neighbors generally assumed that Andrew’s successful sales career had easily afforded the property. Lorraine actively encouraged that false narrative. She frequently boasted to anyone who would listen that her son "worked his fingers to the bone" to provide me with such a beautiful home.
The reality was entirely different.
Three years earlier, my beloved grandmother had passed away, leaving me a small, cozy cottage in Ithaca. I had spent countless idyllic childhood summers there, but my established career and marriage were firmly rooted in the Rochester area. After months of painful deliberation, I made the difficult decision to sell the cottage. After paying the necessary taxes, repair costs, and legal fees, I received exactly one hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars.
I had used one hundred and forty-five thousand dollars of that inheritance as the primary down payment on our current home.
Andrew had contributed a mere twelve thousand dollars from his personal savings. We had signed the deed jointly because we were married, and I naively believed we were building a solid, permanent life together. However, acting on the firm advice of my lawyer friend, Naomi, Andrew had also signed a legally binding, notarized document confirming that the massive down payment originated exclusively from my separate inheritance.
That document didn't guarantee I would get every single penny back in the event of a divorce, but it legally established the source of the funds and definitively blocked any future claim that I had entered the marriage empty-handed.
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Lorraine knew absolutely nothing about this arrangement. Andrew had deliberately let her believe he had purchased the house entirely on his own.
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