Chapter 2 - THE DEED IN DARYL’S NAME
Jenna laughed first.
Not because anything was funny.
Because disbelief is often the first shelter entitlement runs toward.
“Your house?”
Daryl stood between her and his children.
“Yes.”
Robert stepped forward.
“Let’s calm down.”
“No.”
“Daryl.”
“No.”
Elaine looked pale now.
She set her glass on the mantel.
“Jenna didn’t mean the children couldn’t stay anywhere.”
Daryl stared at her.
“She said exactly that.”
“She was frustrated.”
“About what?”
No answer.
Jenna crossed her arms.
“This is the family beach house.”
Daryl almost smiled.
There it was.
The phrase they had used for eight years.
Family beach house.
Not Daryl’s.
Not officially.
Family.
A word that can blur ownership better than any bad contract.
Daryl walked to the entry console and opened the drawer beneath the bowl of keys.
He pulled out a slim folder.
Robert’s face changed instantly.
That was all Daryl needed to see.
Jenna noticed too.
“What is that?”
Daryl removed a certified copy of the deed.
Property:
24768 Pacific Crest Drive, Malibu, California.
Owner:
Mercer Coastal Holdings LLC.
Managing member:
Daryl Mercer.
Jenna read it once.
Then again.
“This is fake.”
“No.”
“You put it in an LLC.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I bought it.”
Silence.
Elaine whispered:
“Daryl.”
He looked at her.
“Don’t.”
Robert’s jaw tightened.
“This is not the time.”
Daryl laughed bitterly.
“When would be the time? Before or after my son gets told he isn’t welcome in the house I paid for?”
Jenna turned to their parents.
“You said this was Dad’s place.”
Robert said nothing.
Elaine looked down.
And suddenly the room rearranged itself around a much older lie.
Daryl had bought the property eight years earlier.
Not because he dreamed of luxury.
Because Robert almost lost it.
The house had belonged to an investment partnership Robert formed with two friends during the last years of his real-estate career. When the partnership collapsed under debt, the bank scheduled a forced sale.
Daryl, thirty-three then and newly successful in logistics software, bought the note through an attorney and later acquired the property in full.
Robert asked him not to tell Jenna.
“She’ll feel embarrassed,” he had said.
Daryl agreed.
Then Elaine asked that they keep calling it the family house.
“So nobody feels like a guest.”
Daryl agreed again.
Anna had warned him.
“You’re giving them permission to forget.”
He had laughed.
Now, standing over the broken sailboat, he heard the warning perfectly.
Jenna grabbed the deed from his hand.
“So what? You own it on paper.”
Daryl stared.
“What else would ownership be on?”
“You let us use it.”
“Yes.”
“Dad manages it.”
Daryl looked at Robert.
“No. Dad schedules family weekends because I let him.”
Robert’s face hardened.
“You said I could treat it like mine.”
“I said you could use it whenever we weren’t here.”
Jenna pointed at Eli.
“Then why should his kids get priority over mine?”
Daryl’s eyes narrowed.
“Because they are my children.”
“And mine are family too.”
“They were stomping on something their mother made.”
Jenna’s voice sharpened.
“They’re eight!”
“And you’re thirty-eight.”
That landed harder.
The twins stood near the door now, confused and angry.
Daryl was not angry at them in the same way.
Children become cruel in environments where cruelty is rewarded with laughter.
He turned to Jenna.
“Pack.”
She laughed again.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
Elaine stepped forward.
“Please don’t do this.”
May you like
Daryl looked at his mother.
“You already did.”
