Two days after Grandma’s funeral, I was still in her kitchen. Then my brother texted: “”We’re in the Maldives. We can’t access Grandma’s account.”” I said nothing. Good thing I moved Grandma’s $235,000. He panicked when…

Everything was in that notebook. Every dollar I had invested in that house since the day we moved in. Receipts. Notes. Dates. Copies of transfers. Three years of my life written down in the unsteady but careful handwriting of a woman who had known, at some level, that one day she might need proof.

I turned the pages.

August 2022: down payment on the house, $68,000.

September 2022: new refrigerator, $1,890. Washer and dryer, $2,450.

October 2022: living room set, $3,200, because Emily said their old apartment furniture looked cheap.

November 2022: burst pipe repair, $870.

A fifty-five-inch television for the living room, $2,200. New mattresses, $3,800. Master bathroom remodel Emily “desperately needed,” $6,500.

And then the monthly mortgage.

Daniel paid $480 a month. That was all he said he could manage. But the actual payment was $1,400. Every month, without fail, I covered the other $920 out of my widow’s pension.

Thirty-six months.

From the $1,600 a month I received after David died, I paid $920 to help maintain the house where I lived like a servant.

On the last page I had written the total.

Down payment and initial furniture: $84,730.

Mortgage contributions over thirty-six months: $33,120.

Repairs, improvements, and other expenses: $18,950.

Total invested: $136,800.

Almost everything David and I had built over forty-two years of marriage had been poured into that house.

But the most important thing in the sewing box was not the notebook.

It was the manila envelope at the bottom.

I pulled it out with shaking hands and opened it. Inside were the original deed papers. When we bought the house, the title officer had advised us to leave it in my name first since I was putting down the entire initial payment. Daniel had agreed at the time. We said we would transfer it later. Later never came.

There it was on paper, clear as daylight.

Property located at 847 Jurist Circle, North Alpine Estates. Owner: Beatrice Torres Mendoza.

My name.

Only my name.

In the first few months Daniel had mentioned transferring it. After that, life always got in the way. We kept postponing it until he stopped asking. And I, consciously or not, stopped reminding him.

Now I understood why.

Some part of me had already known I would need protection.

I placed the deed papers back in the envelope, then reached for my phone and dialed the number I had saved months earlier.

“Megan?”