Chapter 3 - Sarah’s Little Summer BusinessThe grocery store was fifteen minutes away.
Sarah returned forty-seven minutes later.
I know because nobody spoke much while she was gone.
David sat at the kitchen table with his phone in front of him.
Every few minutes he picked it up.
Then put it down again.
Linda and Robert took the children to the dock.
Madison had gone with Sarah, apparently unaware of what we had discovered.
I made myself coffee.
Only myself.
That felt revolutionary.
At 1:38, Sarah walked through the door carrying four paper grocery bags.
Madison came behind her.
“We got burgers, chicken, salad stuff, chips, breakfast things—”
She stopped when she saw everyone’s faces.
“What happened?”
Sarah set the bags down.
“Nothing.”
David spoke without looking up.
“Did you rent Mom’s house to Jennifer Lawson?”
Madison froze.
Sarah did not.
That told me everything.
She slowly removed her sunglasses.
“What are you talking about?”
“Jennifer Lawson.”
“No idea.”
David turned his phone around.
“I just found her in your messages.”
Sarah’s face changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Madison whispered, “Oh, Sarah.”
David looked at her.
“You knew?”
Madison backed away.
“I knew she let people stay here sometimes. I didn’t know Alice didn’t know.”
My stomach dropped.
“People?”
Sarah glared at her sister.
“Stop talking.”
Madison stared.
“You told me Alice was fine with it.”
“How many people?” I asked.
Neither answered.
I walked toward Sarah.
“How many strangers have stayed in my house?”
Sarah folded her arms.
“This is being blown completely out of proportion.”
“How many?”
“A few.”
David stood.
“What does a few mean?”
“Maybe three bookings.”
“Three?”
“Over two summers!”
I gripped the back of a chair.
The idea of strangers sleeping in my bed, using my kitchen, walking through Thomas’s house without my knowledge made my skin crawl.
“When?”
Sarah sighed dramatically.
“When you were visiting Aunt Jean.”
I remembered.
Two summers earlier, I had spent ten days with my sister in Wisconsin.
“What else?”
“When you went to Boston with your quilting group.”
Five days.
Last October.
“And?”
She looked away.
“Sarah.”
“Once when you were staying with us.”
My mouth went dry.
I had stayed at David’s house after cataract surgery because my doctor didn’t want me alone.
While I was recovering in their guest room, Sarah had apparently rented out mine.
David paced across the kitchen.
“How much money?”
“It wasn’t much.”
“How much?”
She exhaled.
“Maybe eleven thousand total.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Robert entered through the screen door.
“What happened?”
Linda followed behind him with the children.
David glanced at Emma and Caleb.
“Kids, can you go down to the dock?”
Emma looked suspiciously at her mother.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
The children left.
David waited until the screen door closed.
Then turned back.
“You made eleven thousand dollars renting Mom’s house?”
Sarah immediately corrected him.
“It wasn’t profit.”
I nearly laughed.
“Oh, good. I was worried.”
She ignored me.
“There were cleaning costs.”
“Who cleaned?” I asked.
She went quiet.
I remembered returning from Boston and noticing the house seemed unusually tidy.
Fresh towels had been folded differently from how I folded them.
I had assumed Sarah had done something kind.
Now I knew.
“You hired cleaners.”
“Yes.”
“With money from renting my home.”
“Yes.”
“Without permission.”
“You weren’t using it!”
Her voice echoed through the kitchen.
And there it was again.
The logic of entitlement.
I wasn’t using my property, so she could.
David stared at her.
“You committed fraud.”
“Oh, please.”
“You represented Mom’s house as yours and took money for it.”
“I never said it was legally mine.”
“You called it ‘our lake house.’”
“That’s how families talk!”
“No,” I said. “That’s how owners talk.”
Sarah rounded on me.
“You never cared until now.”
“You never asked.”
“You always said this house would eventually be David’s.”
“That does not make it yours today.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Well, it will be ours someday.”
The silence afterward was enormous.
Even Sarah seemed to realize she had gone too far.
I stared at her.
Thomas and I had once discussed leaving the lake house to David.
Of course we had.
He was our only child.
After Thomas died, I never changed those plans.
Until three days ago.
I looked at Sarah and suddenly knew I had made the right decision.
“No,” I said quietly.
Her expression shifted.
“What?”
“This house will not be yours someday.”
David turned toward me.
“Mom?”
“I changed my estate plan Wednesday.”
Sarah laughed nervously.
“You’re saying that because you’re angry.”
“No.”
I walked toward my desk and removed another envelope.
“I met with my attorney.”
Her face began to pale.
“I transferred the property into a trust.”
David looked stunned.
“What kind of trust?”
“One that allows me to live here for the rest of my life and determines what happens afterward.”
Sarah stared.
“And what happens afterward?”
“That is private.”
“It concerns my husband.”
“It concerns my property.”
She stepped forward.
“You’re disinheriting your own son because of groceries?”
“No.”
I looked at David.
“I’m protecting my home because someone was secretly renting it to strangers.”
Sarah’s cheeks flushed.
“I told you, I thought you wouldn’t care.”
“You thought I wouldn’t find out.”
“That’s different.”
Madison murmured, “She’s right.”
Sarah whipped around.
“Whose side are you on?”
“Stop asking everyone that!”
Madison finally snapped.
“You lied to me too. You told me Alice knew about the renters. You told Mom and Dad David paid for all these weekends. Every time something comes out, somehow you’ve already explained it differently to everyone.”
Sarah stared at her sister.
Then Linda spoke.
“Did you use our names?”
Sarah frowned.
“What?”
“For the rentals.”
“No.”
“Did you use my cleaning company?”
Robert looked at his wife.
“What cleaning company?”
Linda ignored him.
Sarah went still.
That pause was answer enough.
Linda’s face changed.
For twenty-eight years, she had owned a small residential cleaning service before retiring.
Her business insurance had lapsed the previous year.
“Sarah,” she said slowly, “did you tell people my company cleaned this property?”
“It was just branding.”
“What does that mean?”
“The rental site asked about professional cleaning.”
Linda stared at her daughter.
“You used the name Lakeshore Home Care?”
Sarah said nothing.
“I closed that business eighteen months ago.”
“It wasn’t a big deal.”
“You used my company’s name in commercial transactions after I closed it?”
“You’re making it sound illegal.”
Robert muttered, “Because it might be.”
Sarah looked around the room and suddenly seemed cornered.
But instead of apologizing, she became furious.
“You know what? Fine.”
She grabbed one of the grocery bags.
“I’ll reimburse Alice her precious money.”
“This isn’t about reimbursement,” I said.
“Of course it is.”
“No. It’s about trust.”
“You want money?”
“No.”
“You want an apology?”
“Yes.”
That stopped her.
I continued.
“And I want the booking records.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“All of them.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll contact the platform myself.”
“You don’t even know which platform.”
“I have Jennifer’s phone number.”
For the first time, Sarah looked frightened.
Not angry.
Frightened.
David noticed.
“What else is there?”
“Nothing.”
“Sarah.”
“Nothing!”
She picked up her purse.
David blocked the doorway.
“I’m not trapping you. You can leave. But before you do, tell me why you’re scared Mom will contact these renters.”
“I’m not scared.”
“You are.”
She shook her head.
David’s voice became quieter.
“Were there more than three bookings?”
She didn’t answer.
“How many?”
Silence.
“Sarah.”
“Seven.”
Linda gasped.
David stared.
“Seven rentals?”
“Some were just weekends.”
“How much did you make?”
Sarah rubbed both hands over her face.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Eleven thousand?”
She shook her head.
“Then what?”
No answer.
I felt cold despite the August heat.
“Sarah,” I said, “how much?”
She looked at me.
And whispered, “Around thirty-two.”
“Thirty-two hundred?”
Nobody needed to ask.
Her expression told us.
David whispered, “Thirty-two thousand dollars?”
Sarah started crying.
Not dramatically.
Not convincingly.
But tears came.
“I was going to stop.”
David stared at his wife like he no longer recognized her.
“What did you spend thirty-two thousand dollars on?”
She sat down.
For the first time all day, her arrogance disappeared.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
She looked toward the dock.
Toward their children.
And her next words changed the entire argument.
“I lost my job eleven months ago.”
David went completely still.
“What?”
“I lost my job.”
“You leave for work every morning.”
“I go somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“Coffee shops. The library. Sometimes Madison’s.”
Madison shook her head.
“Twice.”
David looked devastated.
“You’ve been unemployed for almost a year?”
Sarah nodded.
“And you never told me?”
“I was going to fix it.”
“With Mom’s house?”
“I needed money.”
“We have savings.”
Sarah began crying harder.
“No, David.”
He stared at her.
“What do you mean, no?”
She looked at him.
“We don’t.”
A terrible silence settled over my kitchen.
David’s voice barely carried.
“What happened to our savings?”
May you like
Sarah looked down.
And suddenly, the empty refrigerator no longer mattered.
Related Stories
