Paige Booked My Beach House—Then I Found My Signature on a Sale Contract
Mom’s face changed. “Why would she think that?”
“Because she’s been told she isn’t a real cousin. Because every time I stand up for her, somebody calls me difficult.”
Mom opened her mouth, then shut it.
I told her about the retreat advertisement and Milo’s photograph. For once, she didn’t ask me to let anything go.
Paige’s attorney eventually proposed repayment in exchange for us dropping the matter. My attorney explained that restitution could help the people she’d charged, but it could not make the forged contracts disappear. The booking agent and two guests had filed complaints of their own.
Paige repaid the guests in installments after selling her car and drawing on the equity in her home. The court ordered restitution for the remaining losses and placed her on probation after she pleaded guilty to fraud-related charges. Tide & Table recovered its unpaid balance through the same process. The future reservations were canceled, and the booking agent sent written notices to both groups before they made travel plans.
None of it felt clean. Rachel had to tell her daughter the scholarship wasn’t real. Cousins who had been fooled were embarrassed and angry. My parents stopped speaking to Paige for a while, then began speaking to her again. I didn’t ask them to choose.
I did tell them they could no longer give anyone access to my property. Every door code was replaced. The beach house came off every family group chat, and my attorney made sure Paige’s website and brochures were taken down.
Late that summer, Ethan, Milo, and I went to the house alone.
We bought groceries on the way. Milo chose peaches, marshmallows, and the cereal Ethan pretended was too sugary to allow at home. We carried our bags inside without stepping around anyone else’s luggage.
That evening, she stood in the doorway of the room facing the dunes. It had two beds, blue curtains, and a shelf of books I’d picked out for her years ago. On that last family weekend, she had slept on the floor of another room while both beds here sat empty.
“Can I have this one?” she asked.
“You can always have this one.”
She set her bag on the nearest bed and opened the window. Salt air moved the curtains. Downstairs, Ethan called that dinner was ready, and she shouted back that she was coming.
I stayed a moment longer, listening to her footsteps cross the floor. I had spent years paying for a place where my daughter was made to feel like a guest. Now she knew which room was hers.