Fresh paint.
Available September fifteenth.
Twelve-month lease.
Contact: Darcy.
My daughter-in-law’s phone number appeared beneath the listing.
I read it twice.
Then again.
No mold.
No repairs.
No emergency.
Photographs showed an empty living room.
On the carpet were three pale circular dents.
Piano legs.
The listing had gone live August twenty-eighth.
More than two weeks before I left on the cruise.
Norine’s move had not been a response to an emergency.
My absence was part of the schedule.
I drove to Yuba City the next morning.
A young woman in medical scrubs opened the condo door holding a gray cat.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “I’m related to the owner.”
Her name was Nelly.
She and her husband had moved in September fifteenth on a twelve-month lease.
“Mold?” she said when I asked carefully.
Then laughed.
“No. I’m a respiratory therapist. I inspected everything.”
“Who manages the rent?”
“Darcy.”
My daughter-in-law was collecting $1,875 a month from Norine’s condo while Norine lived in my house for $175 a week.
The math was not complicated.
Somebody had turned my home into the missing piece in a financial plan.
On the drive back, I stopped for coffee.
A yellow flyer was pinned to the shop bulletin board.
NORINE TACKET PIANO STUDIO — NEW HOME LOCATION.
My address.
Below it:
Fall Student Recital. Sunday, October 12. 2:00 PM.
All welcome.
I photographed the flyer.
Then left it where it was.
When Darcy came over Friday, I was washing a pot.
“I met Nelly,” I said.
Darcy put her purse down.
No flinch.
“So?”
“You told me there was mold.”
“I told you what you needed to hear.”
The plainness of it almost impressed me.
“Your mother’s condo is rented for a year.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re collecting the rent.”
“She needs income.”
“Then why doesn’t she live somewhere she can afford?”
Darcy folded her arms.
“Because this works.”
“For you.”
“For everyone.”
I dried my hands.
“No. Not everyone.”
Her smile disappeared.
Then she said it again.
To my face.
“Once the furniture’s in, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
I thought of the porch-camera clip.
The signed agreement.
Darcy’s rent memo.
The listing.
The recital flyer.
“I’m familiar with the rules,” I said.
She laughed.
“Then you know I’m right.”
That evening, I went into Leif’s office.
I removed the agreement from the drawer.
I read every line.
Then I called Martha.
“Ready?”
“I am.”
We reviewed the dates.
The payment period.
The occupancy.
The document.
The owner-occupied arrangement.
Then she helped me draft a written notice ending the week-to-week lodging arrangement after the required period stated in the agreement and applicable rules.
Nothing emotional.
No accusations.
No mention of Darcy’s lie.
A date.
A deadline.
A request that Norine remove her personal property.
The following morning, Dedra stood behind me as a witness.
I knocked on the guest-room door.
Norine opened it.
I handed her the notice.
Her expression tightened.
“You can’t do this.”
“Please read it.”
She did.
Twice.
Darcy arrived forty minutes later.
Keegan followed.
She read the notice and laughed.
“Seven days?”