My own daughter told me, “Mom, don’t come to the l…

Since we use the lake house more than anyone, maybe it would make sense to put it in our names.”

I stared at her. My daughter. My firstborn.

The baby they laid on my chest at Grady four minutes after she entered the world furious and loud and already convinced everyone should pay attention. I looked for shame in her face. Guilt.

Even nervousness. There was none. She said it the way a person asks someone to pass the salt.

“For tax purposes,” she added. “You know. Simplify things.”

“It is in my name,” I said.

“That is where it stays.”

She smiled. Not warmly. Not quite cold either.

It was the smile of a person setting down a marker in a game she believed would continue. “Okay, Mom,” she said. “Just a thought.”

But it was not just a thought.

Thoughts do not come with follow-up letters from attorneys. Two weeks later, I received an envelope at my house in Atlanta on letterhead from Bradley Collins, attorney at law. Inside was a neatly phrased suggestion that, given Lorraine and Kevin’s “primary use” of the Lake Oconee property and their “ongoing investment in upkeep,” a voluntary transfer of ownership into their names might constitute a reasonable and efficient long-term family arrangement.