Chapter 15 - The Day I Almost Quit
The safe had been opened.
My emergency cash was gone, along with old bonds and a few small keepsakes.
Harold's ring was still missing.
For the first time since the dinner, I wanted to give up.
Not because Marcus deserved the house.
Because I was tired of discovering how little my family had respected me.
A photograph of my bandaged face appeared on a neighborhood social media page.
Under it, someone had written that I was confused, paranoid, and accusing loving relatives of crimes.
There were strangers offering prayers for my “decline.”
People who'd never met me were discussing whether I should be allowed to live alone.
I couldn't go to the grocery store without wondering who had seen it.
I stopped answering the phone.
I left the curtains drawn.
Then Denise called.
Someone had taped a ten-day notice to the rental door, ordering her and Caleb to leave.
It carried the same false property authority we'd been fighting.
Caleb had found it when he came home from school.
“Is it real?” Denise asked.
“No,” I said.
“Leah will handle it.
You have a valid lease.”
After the call I sat on the floor beside Harold's empty safe and finally sobbed.
I had kept that house through layoffs, repairs, and funerals.
Now every protection seemed to produce another attack.
Nora sat down next to me, though her knees complained the whole way.
“Maybe I should have just paid them,” I whispered.
She looked almost offended.
“Would that have made them love you?”
I couldn't answer.
A minute later my phone rang.
It was Tyler.
I nearly let it go to voicemail.
“Grandma,” he said, his voice shaking, “Marissa told me what they plan to say about you at the next hearing.”
“More lies?”
May you like
“Yes.
And this time they're bringing someone who says they watched you sign the deed.”
