Chapter 8 - Moving Day
January 31st arrived with gray, biting skies and a high temperature of nineteen degrees.
At 2:00 PM, a massive, rusted U-Haul truck was parked in the driveway of 742 Willow Creek Lane.
I sat in my SUV parked across the street, watching through the frosted glass. I didn't go inside. Deputy Jenkins and a second deputy stood near the front porch, ensuring the peace was kept.
Greg was carrying mismatched plastic totes, his face gray with humiliation. Daniel was there too, sweating in his heavy coat, carrying an old dresser down the front steps. Neither of them looked up. Neither of them spoke.
My parents’ luxury Buick was parked at the curb. My mother stood near the open trunk, her face buried in a scarf, weeping as she loaded Madison’s winter clothes into the backseat.
Then Monica emerged through the front door.
She carried two large suitcases. When her boots hit the icy driveway, she stopped and looked across the street directly at my SUV.
Even from fifty yards away, I could see the bitter, burning ruin in her eyes. She had lost her free mansion. She had lost her illegal side business. She had lost her reputation in the community. She was thirty-six years old, moving into our parents’ three-bedroom suburban home with her husband, her daughter, and her debts.
I lowered my window two inches.
Monica stared at me, her hands clenching the handles of her luggage until her knuckles turned white. She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw something. But with two uniformed deputies watching her every move, she couldn't say a single word.
She threw her suitcases into the back of the U-Haul, climbed into the passenger seat beside Greg, and slammed the heavy door shut.
The U-Haul engine sputtered to life with a loud, diesel roar. It pulled out of the driveway, followed slowly by my parents’ Buick.
They turned left onto the main avenue and disappeared into the gray winter haze.
Deputy Jenkins walked across the asphalt, his boots crunching in the snow, and tapped gently on my driver’s side window.
I rolled it all the way down.
“House is completely clear, Mrs. Vance,” the deputy said, handing me a small manila envelope containing three metal keys. “Locksmith just finished replacing every deadbolt and installed the new digital keypad. It’s all yours.”
I took the keys. They felt surprisingly light in my palm.
“Thank you, Deputy,” I said.
“Take care, ma'am.”
I got out of my car, walked up the driveway, and stepped through the front door of 742 Willow Creek Lane.
The house was empty. The sound of my boots echoed across the bare oak floors. There was dust where furniture had sat, faint indentations in the carpet, and absolute, pristine silence.
I walked to the kitchen, opened the window slightly to let out the stale air, and pulled out my phone.
I dialed our real estate agent, Sarah.
“Sarah?” I said.
“Hannah! Did they vacate?”
“The house is empty,” I told her. “List it on the MLS tomorrow morning. Four hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, as-is.”
“It’ll sell in forty-eight hours in this neighborhood,” Sarah said cheerfully. “What are you doing with the proceeds?”
I looked out through the bare kitchen window toward the overcast sky, where a small crack of golden sunlight was finally breaking through the clouds.
May you like
“Every single dollar of profit is going into an irrevocable trust for Olivia’s education and robotics lab,” I said. “Every last cent.”
***
