Chapter 2: The House of Hollow Hearts
The silence that followed was absolute. The lawyer, Mr. Henderson, looked like he wanted to vanish through the floorboards. Claire, recovering her composure with the lightning-fast reflexes of a sociopath, smoothed her dress.
"Elias," she said, her voice rising in feigned delight. "Oh my god, you’re alive! We all thought… the military told us… oh, honey!" She reached out to touch his arm, but Elias recoiled as if she were a viper.
"Don't," he commanded. He turned back to his mother. "Mom, tell me everything. Start from the day the telegram came."
Martha, still shaking, began to speak. She told him about the months of grief, and then the slow, methodical erosion of her life. How Claire had stopped visiting, then had stopped sending money for groceries, then had started showing up to "inspect" the property. How she had bullied Martha into signing away her rights to the family estate, claiming it was for "inheritance tax purposes."
As she spoke, Elias’s gaze drifted around the room. The house was stripped of the warmth he remembered. His father’s medals were gone. The piano was gone. It was a sterile, cold box, waiting to be sold to the highest bidder.
"She told me you wanted her to handle the estate," Martha whispered. "She said you’d want me in a home. She took everything, Elias. She even took the wedding ring Dad gave me."
Elias looked at Claire. She wasn't looking at him with love or relief. She was looking at him with calculation. She was already mentally calculating how to fix this "glitch" in her plan.
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"The house is already under contract, Elias," Claire said, her voice hardening. "I’m the legal power of attorney. You were declared dead in the eyes of the law. I’ve liquidated the assets to secure my future. You can’t just walk back in here and expect everything to go back to normal. You’re a ghost. We need to go to the courthouse, fix the paperwork, and… well, we’ll figure something out."
Elias walked over to the desk where her laptop sat open. He closed it. "There’s nothing to figure out, Claire. You made your choice. Now, you’re going to live with it."
