Chapter 9 - The Thirty Days
"Here are the terms of your residency," I said.
Sterling lifted his head from his hands. His eyes were red, swollen, his face streaked with tears and snot, looking like a fifty-year-old toddler whose highchair had just been kicked over.
"You have thirty days," I said, looking from my brother to my mother. "The statutory minimum under the tenant protection laws of this Commonwealth. On the thirty-first day of March, at precisely twelve o'clock noon, a commercial locksmith will arrive at that front door. The locks will be changed. The security codes will be reset. The account with the power company will be transferred to my name."
"Elaine!" Bernice cried, dropping to her knees on the Persian rug, her peach-colored slacks gathering the spilled gin. "You can't evict your own mother! I’m seventy-two years old! Where am I supposed to go?"
"You have a son, Mother," I said, looking down at Sterling. "The son you gave my college fund to. The son whose luxury cars I paid the insurance on. The son you told me was the head of this family. Let him provide for you."
Sterling let out a ragged, dry cough. "I don't have any money, Elaine! My credit cards are closed! I have sixteen hundred dollars in my checking account!"
"Then you had better find a two-bedroom apartment near the bus line, Sterling," I said. "And you had better start packing the crystal, because anything left inside this house at twelve-oh-one on March thirty-first will be loaded onto a flatbed and delivered to the municipal dump."
I reached onto the dining table, picked up the recorded deed, and slid it back into the emerald leather portfolio.
I left the default notice resting beside the dried cheddar cheese.
"And Sterling?" I paused at the threshold of the living room, looking back at the two of them huddled on the carpet like survivors of a shipwreck they had steered onto the rocks themselves.
Sterling looked up, his jaw slack, a tiny, pathetic glimmer of hope flickering in his eyes.
"What?" he croaked.
"The wedding dress cost two thousand dollars," I said. "Madame Genevieve’s receipt is inside that envelope. If the restitution check is not cleared through my credit union by the fifteenth of the month, I will file a formal complaint for criminal destruction of property with the magistrate’s office. Arson is a Class 4 felony in Virginia, Sterling. It carries two to ten years in the state penitentiary. I’m sure the regional board would find that very interesting."
Bernice let out a low, animal wail that echoed off the high plaster ceilings, burying her face in the sofa cushions as Sterling’s head dropped back between his knees.
I walked through the foyer.
I picked up the stained denim apron from the floor where it had fallen, walked to the fireplace, and dropped it into the cold, gray ashes of my wedding dress.
Then I walked out the front door, down the slush-covered flagstones, and climbed into my Civic.
As I shifted into reverse and backed out into the street, I looked through the rear-view mirror.
May you like
The clouds over Oakridge were finally parting, letting a long, brilliant spear of winter sunlight strike the five white columns of 1442 Elmcrest Drive.
The house looked large, hollow, and completely empty.
