Chapter 5 - The Bail and the Begging
By nine the next morning, I was back in my St. Paul loft, a fresh pot of black coffee brewing on the counter. The bandage on my head pulled tight whenever I turned, but the quiet of my apartment felt sacred.
My phone had not stopped vibrating since dawn.
There were forty-two missed calls from Genesis, twelve from Jackson’s brother, and dozens of text messages from various aunts and cousins who had sat silently while Jackson struck me. The tone of the messages had evolved dramatically over the night: from pompous demands to withdraw the charges, to bewildered questions, to outright panic.
At 10:15 AM, the intercom buzzer screamed.
I walked to the monitor. Genesis Miller stood on the front steps of my brownstone. The pristine matriarch from the previous night was gone. Her designer coat was wrinkled, her makeup was smeared under hollow, sleepless eyes, and her hands trembled as she pressed the buzzer repeatedly.
I pressed the talk button. “Leave, Genesis. You’re trespassing.”
“Clara! Please!” Her voice crackled through the speaker, choked with tears and frantic desperation. “You must answer me! The sheriff’s deputies came to my home this morning! They served me an order of receivership! They told me I have forty-eight hours to vacate the estate!”
“You haven’t paid the mortgage in nearly a year,” I said into the intercom. “The bank sold the bad paper to Sterling & Vance. I gave you thirty days' notice of default, Genesis. You simply ignored it because you thought the firm was an out-of-state collector.”
“Jackson is in a holding cell!” she shrieked through the grill, her voice bouncing off the brownstone walls. “They won't accept my bond! He says you own the debt, Clara! How could you do this to us? You’re his wife! You’re my daughter-in-law! What will people say?”
“Last night, you carved lamb while your son threw a porcelain plate at my skull,” I replied, my voice steady and measured. “You told me I was useless and demanded my home. Now, you’re losing yours. If you press that buzzer again, I will have the building security officer detain you for violating the emergency order of protection granted to me two hours ago.”
“Clara, I’ll give you whatever you want!” she wailed, pounding her fists against the heavy security glass. “We’ll drop the demands! Jackson will apologize! He’ll get on his knees!”
“It’s too late for apologies,” I said, and disconnected the line.
May you like
Through the monitor, I watched her collapse onto the stone steps, weeping into her fur collar as the pedestrian traffic of downtown St. Paul walked briskly past her.
***
