Chapter 2 - Grandpa Shows Me The Second Mortgage
The first document was a county property record.
My parents’ house had no mortgage.
It had been paid off four years earlier.
I stared at Grandpa.
“That’s impossible.”
Every month, $1,850 of my automatic transfers was labeled Mortgage Support.
Grandpa tapped the document.
“Your father paid the balance after he received money from his brother’s estate.”
I looked at Marcus.
Neither of us spoke.
Grandpa pulled out bank statements.
My mother had continued asking me for mortgage money for forty-eight months after the mortgage disappeared.
Nearly ninety thousand dollars.
“Where did it go?”
Grandpa turned to the next page.
A wire transfer.
VALERIE WHITAKER TO SEABREEZE PROPERTY GROUP.
The amount was $32,000.
Then another.
Then another.
Seabreeze was connected to a condominium in Fort Lauderdale.
The owner was not my mother.
It was Kendra.
My sister.
Grandpa said quietly:
“You’ve been helping pay for Kendra’s condo.”
I felt Nia breathing against my chest.
Kendra had told everyone she rented a small apartment.
She did not.
County records showed she owned a two-bedroom condo purchased three years earlier.
My mother had supplied most of the down payment.
With money I believed was keeping my parents from losing their home.
But Grandpa was not finished.
“The condo is only one part.”
He pulled out a statement from an investment account.
My name appeared nowhere on it.
Kendra’s did.
May you like
So did my mother’s.
And over six years, more than $170,000 had flowed into it.
