I set an envelope on the table beside his plate.
He looked at it. He looked at me.
I told him to open it.
Inside were three documents Patricia had prepared and sent electronically while I was moving my mother back to the guest room.
The first was a copy of the property deed, highlighting the sole owner. My name. Not his.
The second was a letter from Patricia formally notifying Gabriel that the homeowner had not authorized the relocation of any guest within the property and that the unauthorized modification of the guest bedroom constituted an alteration of the living arrangement without the owner’s consent.
The third was a document I had hoped I would never need. A postnuptial agreement Patricia had drafted eighteen months earlier at my request, after the first time Gabriel made a decision about our home without consulting me. At the time, he had given away furniture from the living room to his brother without asking. I told myself it was a one-time lapse. Patricia told me to prepare for the possibility that it was a pattern.
