Chapter 4 - THE LAKE FUND
Ben called Diane first.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“What now?”
Ben put the phone on speaker.
“Have you been giving Mom money for Silver Lake?”
Silence.
Then Diane sighed.
“Every year.”
“How much?”
“Usually twelve hundred.”
Ben closed his eyes.
“For what?”
“Maintenance.”
“I pay the maintenance.”
Diane did not answer.
Ben looked at me.
“How long?”
“Since Dad died.”
Five years.
Ben leaned back in his chair.
“Mom has never given me any money for repairs.”
Diane’s voice became defensive.
“Maybe she pays for smaller things.”
“Forty-eight thousand dollars of smaller things?”
That stopped her.
Ben sent the spreadsheet.
We heard Diane opening it.
Then her voice changed.
“Where did you get this?”
“Mom emailed it to me years ago.”
“I didn’t know everyone was paying.”
Neither had Ben.
Karen apparently approached family members individually.
She told each person their contribution helped preserve Silver Lake.
Some gave five hundred dollars.
Others gave two thousand.
One elderly uncle had paid nearly four thousand one year.
Diane whispered.
“Ben, I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t.”
“And she said the lake was expensive.”
“It is.”
“But I’m the one paying for it.”
I opened the bank statements from the last roof repair.
Ben had spent nineteen thousand dollars.
Karen’s contribution had been zero.
Diane sounded sick.
“I’m calling her.”
“No.”
Ben’s answer came immediately.
“Why not?”
“Because I want records before she starts explaining.”
That was when I knew my husband had stopped reacting like Karen’s son.
He was thinking like a property owner protecting something that had been misused.
The next morning, Ben contacted the attorney who had handled Harold Walker’s estate.
Her name was Marlene Shaw.
She was seventy-four and had officially retired three years earlier.
But when Ben mentioned Silver Lake, she became very quiet.
“I wondered when this would happen.”
Ben and I exchanged a look.
“When what would happen?”
“When Karen finally challenged the deed.”
Ben gripped his phone.
“You knew she might?”
“Your grandfather certainly believed she would.”
Marlene asked us to visit her home that afternoon.
When we arrived, she already had a file sitting on her dining-room table.
HAROLD WALKER.
SILVER LAKE.
Marlene opened it.
“Your grandfather transferred the property to you while he was still alive.”
“I know.”
“He did it specifically because he did not trust Karen with it.”
Ben swallowed.
“She was his daughter-in-law.”
“Yes.”
“And he loved her in his way.”
Marlene adjusted her glasses.
“But Harold believed your mother confused family with ownership.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Marlene removed a sealed envelope.
Across the front, in shaky handwriting, were the words:
FOR BEN, IF KAREN EVER TRIES TO TAKE THE LAKE.
Ben stared at it.
“Why didn’t I get this before?”
“Because Harold gave me instructions.”
Marlene pushed the envelope toward him.
“He said you should only read it if your mother forced the issue.”
Ben broke the seal.
Inside was a three-page handwritten letter.
He read silently for less than a minute.
Then he stopped.
His face went white.
I touched his arm.
“What does it say?”
Ben looked at me.
May you like
Then at Marlene.
“My mother tried to sell Silver Lake once before.”
