Mrs. Mercedes turned her sharp, furious gaze onto her son, her face contorting into something ugly and desperate. “You idiot,” she hissed, her voice dropping into a venomous whisper. “You absolute fool. You couldn’t even clean out a simple attic?”
Daniel flinched as if she had struck him across the face. “I forgot it was up there! It was from six years ago!”
“You forgot?” she spat, her fingers clawing at the strap of her designer bag. “You forgot the entire foundation of everything we built? Get your coat. We are leaving.”
“Leaving?” Daniel stammered, looking around the kitchen as if he were waking up in a strange city. “Where are we going? The movers are, “
“The movers are canceling,” she snapped, grabbing the handle of her nearest suitcase with a grip so tight her knuckles turned blue. She yanked the bag around so hard it clipped the corner of the pantry door, leaving a black scuff mark on the white wood. “Unless you want to spend the next five years paying restitution to the state attorney general’s office for perjury, we are getting back in your car and we are leaving this house right now.”
She didn’t look at me. She didn’t say another word about the guest suite or the title or her silver dresser. She just marched toward the front door, her heels clicking a sharp, furious rhythm against the foyer tiles until the heavy wooden door swung open and let in a fresh gust of cold, wet wind from the street.
Daniel stood there for three seconds longer, his hands still in his pockets, his eyes fixed on the green folder on the counter as if it were some kind of venomous snake.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Save it for the judge on Monday morning when my lawyer files the emergency motion to vacate the settlement,” I said, pointing toward the open front door where his mother was already standing by the passenger side of his sedan, her umbrella shaking in the wind. “And take your suitcases with you.”
He didn’t reach for the handle. He just turned around, his shoulders hunched inside the gray fleece, and walked out the door without looking back.
I watched through the sidelight by the door as he loaded the two oversized bags into the trunk of his car, his movements jerky and hurried in the rain. I watched Mrs. Mercedes climb into the passenger seat, staring straight ahead through the windshield, refusing to look at the house one last time.
When the taillights finally turned the corner past the old oak tree at the end of the cul-de-sac, the street went back to being quiet.
I walked over to the heavy wooden front door, pulled it shut until the latch clicked firmly into place against the draft, and locked it twice.
The kitchen was completely still. I picked up my cold mug of coffee, walked back to the counter, and closed the green folder with a soft, clean thud.
