Adam stood motionless on my porch with Grandma’s old brass key pinched between his fingers.
Mr.
Ellis’s voice came through his phone.
“Before you touch that lock again, Adam, your grandmother left a sealed instruction for you.”
Adam glanced toward the porch camera, then turned away as if changing the angle could keep me from hearing.
“What instruction?” he asked.
“Put me on speaker.”
Adam’s jaw tightened.
Behind him, Brooke had finally stepped out of the SUV.
She folded her arms over her travel sweater and looked from Adam to the locked door.
The children were still on the porch, sleepy and confused, their backpacks hanging from narrow shoulders.
Brooke guided them back toward the vehicle.
“Get inside for a minute,” she said.
“Your aunt is having one of her moments.”
I pressed the porch speaker.
“Do not put this on me, Brooke.”
Her head snapped toward the camera.
Adam tapped the speaker icon on his phone.
“All right,” he told Mr.
Ellis.
“You’re on speaker.
Explain why Lily changed the locks when we have a flight to catch.”
Mr.
Ellis did not raise his voice.
“Lily changed the locks because she owns the house.”
Adam gave a short laugh.
“We all know Grandma left it to her.
That doesn’t mean the rest of us are banned from it.”
“Ownership means exactly that Lily decides who enters.”
“She gave me this key.”
“For emergencies while Ruth was living there,” Mr.
Ellis said.
“That permission ended when the property transferred.
The key was never an easement, an ownership interest, or a permanent right of access.”
Adam looked at the useless piece of brass in his hand.
He had always treated the key as evidence that he belonged inside.
Mr.
Ellis had just described it as evidence that he did not.
Brooke stepped closer to the phone.
“This is ridiculous.
We aren’t trying to steal the house.
We’re dropping off the children for one weekend.”
“Did Lily agree to care for them?” Mr.
Ellis asked.
Silence settled over the porch.
Adam answered first.
“She always takes them.”
“That was not my question.”
Brooke exhaled sharply.
“We knew she would make it complicated if we asked too far in advance.”
I almost laughed, but the sound caught in my throat.
There it was.
They had not forgotten to ask.
They had deliberately avoided asking because a public announcement at the last minute gave me less room to refuse.
Adam looked at Brooke as though she had revealed something private.
Then he faced the camera again.
