Chapter 3

I stared at the pieces on the floor.

Richard's teapot. The one he'd kept on his desk for thirty years.

The one he was holding in the last photograph I had of him.

"What did you just do."

Hailey dusted her palms off like she'd gotten something sticky on them.

"Oops. Slipped."

She shrugged.

"Relax, Eleanor. It's just some ugly little pot. You're scaring Leo screaming over it."

Liam bounced Leo away from me, frowning like I was the problem.

"Mom, seriously. You know Hailey's temper. Why would you provoke her? It's a teapot. I'll order you one off Amazon tonight. Twenty bucks, looks identical, on your porch by Friday."

I looked up at him. My vision had gone blurry at the edges.

"Twenty bucks."

"Yeah, Mom. Don't make this a thing."

"That was your father's. It was Yixing clay. The auction house valued it at two hundred thousand dollars."

Hailey's eyes flicked sideways when I said the number. I saw her do the math.

Then her voice went up an octave.

"Two hundred thousand? Are you insane? Are you trying to shake us down? "

"I'm telling you right now, you're not getting a dime. You stole my necklace, that was thirty grand. We are even."

She walked over and kicked the largest piece of porcelain across the floor, watched it skid to the baseboard.

"Let me make this simple for you. You're signing the deed tonight. You're not going to argue. And if you breathe one word of pushback, you will never see Leo again. Not his birthdays. Not his graduation. Nothing."

She pointed at Leo in Liam's arms. "Liam. Take him out. I don't want him breathing this old-lady air. And from now on, she doesn't touch him without my permission."

Liam hesitated. "Hailey, come on. She's his grandma."

"So? With a shoplifter for a grandmother, he'll get bullied at school. He'll have to explain her at Christmas dinner his whole life. Liam, I swear to God, if you take her side on this one, we are filing papers tomorrow morning."

Liam crumbled so fast it was almost impressive.

He turned to me with that look. The one that had always meant fix this for me, Mom.

"Mom. Just get the contract out. Please. Before she really loses it. This house is coming to me eventually anyway. What's the difference?"

I pushed myself up off the floor. My knee was bleeding where I'd knelt in the porcelain, but I didn't feel it.

"Liam. You are using your father's ashes and your son as leverage to get this house out of me."

"Jesus, Mom, don't be dramatic. It's called estate planning. You're one old woman rattling around in a mansion."

"What does it accomplish? Keep playing this selfish game and see who's changing your diapers in ten years."

I looked at him. Carefully.

And I couldn't find the boy I'd raised anywhere in that face.

I took a long breath in. The inside of my mouth tasted like copper.

"You want the house."

"Yes. Thank you."

"Second floor. Top drawer of the writing desk."

Hailey's whole face lit up. She shoved Leo back into my arms and grabbed Liam's sleeve and dragged him toward the staircase.

Actually,

What was in that drawer was a signed contract for the sale of the Tribeca penthouse.

And a repossession notice for the Cayenne sitting in my driveway.