Chapter 5 - The Legal-Aid Office
Three days later, I sat across from Renata, a legal-aid attorney, and slid the transfer record and Walter's note across her desk. She read it twice and looked up. "Where did this come from?"
"A man who slept on my porch during the storm. He also knows my ex-husband, and knows my ex used to make me sign things without reading them."
That last part made her set down her pen. "Do you have anything in writing? Texts, emails, anything where he told you not to read something before you signed it?"
I did. I'd kept every email from the divorce, out of habit more than hope. "Two years of them. He used to say the same phrase every time. 'Same paperwork, don't waste time on it.'"
"Pull every one. And find this man again. I need more than a note to reopen anything."
I didn't have to look far this time. Two days later, Walter came to Renata's office on his own and put a second envelope on her desk — a single page from the original transfer agreement, showing a condition attached to the sale of the house that Russell's side had simply acted as though it never existed.
"You kept this how long?" Renata asked.
"Since before Diane was in his life."
"And your relationship to Russell, at the time this was signed?"
May you like
Walter glanced at me, then back at her. "Get him in a room with both of you. I'll answer that once, on the record, and not before."
Renata didn't love it. But the page was real, and that bought him his delay.
