He exhaled as if I had given him absolution. “We’re coming Thursday morning with the development team for a final walk-through. They want to review the demolition schedule and site access. Melissa will be there, too. I was hoping you’d be reasonable.”
“I’ll be here.”
“Thanks, Dad. I mean that.”
“I know you do.”
When we hung up, I sat by the fire until the logs collapsed into coals.
That night, I dreamed of Eleanor.
Not sick Eleanor. Not the fragile woman whose hands trembled when she lifted a teacup. I dreamed of her at forty-three, standing barefoot on the dock in one of my old shirts, her hair loose in the wind, yelling at Kyle to stop throwing lake weeds at the dog. She turned toward me in the dream and smiled as if she knew a secret.
I woke before dawn with tears on my face and anger clean in my chest.
Wednesday was preparation.
I drove to Duluth and met Frank at his office. He had cleared a conference table and spread the title chain across it like a battlefield map. Frank looked older than he had the last time I saw him, but so did I. Age had narrowed his face and silvered his hair. It had not touched his precision.
“The life estate is enforceable,” he said, tapping the recording stamp. “No ambiguity. No defect. No basis for removal. Kyle could sell his remainder interest, but he could not deliver possession. Any buyer takes subject to your rights.”
“What about demolition?”
“Impossible without your written consent. Any attempt would be trespass, interference with property rights, potential conversion if they remove personal property, and we would seek injunctive relief immediately.”
“And Lakefront?”
“They will be furious.”
“I assumed.”
“They may try to pressure you. They may offer money. They may threaten litigation. But their direct claim is against Kyle and possibly the title company. If they failed to discover a recorded encumbrance, that is their problem. If Kyle represented no encumbrances, that is his.”
I walked to the window. Duluth lay below us, gray and hard-edged under a low sky. “He used to be a good boy.”
Frank said nothing.
