Page 49 of Little Bitter Truths
“They suspected robbery at first, but now we know it’s a homicide.Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
She glanced over her shoulder into the house, then back at me.“Sure, come in.”
The home was clean and bright with an abundance of light filtering in through the windows, the kind of space that felt lived in, but not cluttered.Toys were present but tucked into baskets, and a stack of folded laundry sat on a chair near the hallway, ready to be put away.
“If you live anywhere near Mia, you’ve driven quite a distance to talk to me,” Renee said.“Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
She motioned toward the living room.“We can talk in here.”
We sat, and she folded her hands in her lap.Her gaze dropped for a moment, and when she looked back at me, the sadness in her eyes had returned.
“Wren’s death has been hard to process,” she said.“We were close once.”
“Tell me about that.”
“When we were younger, we spent many summers at our grandfather’s house, having sleepovers and swimming in the pool.”
“Did you have the same relationship with Mia?”
She looked away for a moment, then said, “Mia has always kept to herself.She isn’t unkind, just hard to connect with, I guess, even back then.”
“And now?”
“She hasn’t changed much.I’ve tried connecting with her.I even reached out after she told me Wren had died, and we talked for a few minutes at the funeral.I suppose she’s still bitter about?—”
“The fact that you contested your grandfather’s will.”
She crossed one leg over the other and leaned back.“It was a mistake.I see that now.My grandfather told me before he died that he was going to make a change to his will.He’d decided the house in Santa Monica would go to me.And listen, I know I have no way of proving that conversation ever happened, but it did.”
“Did he give you a reason for his change of heart?”
“I’m the only one with children.He wanted the house to remain in the family, something future generations could grow up with and remember.He’d started to wonder if Wren or Mia would ever have children of their own.When I told him I wanted to raise my kids there, it meant a lot to him.”
“But he never got around to changing his will.”
“He didn’t.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged.“I guess he thought he had more time.”
I found myself wondering who was telling the truth, or maybe they were both telling me a version of it.There had been no hesitation in her answers, nothing to indicate she was lying.
“When you decided to contest the will, did you stop to think about how it would make Mia and Wren feel?”I asked.
“All the time.I just felt it was the right thing to do.”
“The letter you claimed your grandfather wrote, was it forged?”
She bit down on her lip.“I don’t think I should answer that.”
“The judge sided with Mia and Wren,” I said.“How did you feel when that happened?”
“Sad, I guess.If the house had gone to me, I planned to put Mia and Wren on the deed as well.I would have loved to raise my children there, but at the same time, I didn’t see why the house couldn’t belong to all of us.”
Her admission was unexpected.
