Chapter 7 - Notice to Vacate
On Thursday afternoon, Emily arrived home from the clinic early.
She parked her Honda on the street instead of the driveway. As she walked up the flagstone path, she noticed the faint scent of cigarette smoke—a habit Richard had quit twelve years ago after his first bypass surgery.
She walked around to the side of the house.
Sitting on the small cedar porch outside the guest suite entrance was Richard. He was wearing an old flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off, staring blankly at the line of pine trees that bordered the back lot. Beside him on the small wicker table was a glass of water and a white legal envelope, already torn open along the top edge.
Emily climbed the three steps.
"They came this morning," Richard said. His voice was barely a rumble in his chest, old and tired, like gravel shifting down a dry chute.
"I know," Emily said.
The envelope contained a formal Notice to Leave the Premises under Section 1923.04 of the Ohio Revised Code, served by the county sheriff’s civil division. It gave Richard and Diane Vance thirty days to vacate the west-wing suite of 1420 Sycamore Ridge Court.
"You really going to put your old man out on the street, Em?" Richard asked. He didn't look angry; he looked hollowed out, as though someone had scraped the pulp out of him and left only the rind. "After all those years I worked the counter? After all those Saturdays I took you down to the warehouse to ride the forklift?"
Emily sat down on the top step, resting her elbows on her knees.
"You didn't protect her, Dad," Emily said.
Richard stayed silent.
"You sat on that patio," Emily continued, her voice soft in the afternoon quiet, "and you watched those two boys pour five gallons of sewage over a six-year-old child who has no mother to defend her. And you sharpened your knife."
"I was trying to keep the peace," Richard whispered. "Melissa... Melissa has always been fragile. When she was sixteen and had that breakdown after the pageant, the doctors said—"
"Melissa is thirty-six years old, Dad. She is a grown woman who stole fourteen thousand dollars from your pension while you were living in my house. And you let her do it because you’d rather watch me work sixty hours a week to support you than admit to yourself that your favorite daughter is a parasite."
Richard flinched. The word parasite seemed to strike him physically, his rounded shoulders sinking another inch into his ribs.
"Where are we supposed to go, Em?" he asked. "The retirement village in Centerville wants sixteen hundred a month. We don't have it. With the car payment Diane’s making on that Range Rover..."
"The car payment is dead," Emily said. "I canceled the debit card on Monday. And this morning, I spoke with Greg."
Richard’s head turned slowly. "You called Greg?"
"Greg called me," Emily said. "He spent three hours with his accountant yesterday after the school board notified him about the residency fraud. Greg didn't know about the fourteen thousand dollars, Dad. Melissa told him that money came from an inheritance from her godmother. He didn't know about the twelve thousand dollars in boutique charges on your credit cards, either."
A sharp, violent sob sounded from behind the screen door.
Diane stood in the shadows of the small hallway, her forehead pressed against the wire mesh. Her makeup was gone, her face gray and lined with an ancient, bitter grief that had nothing to do with Easter dresses or ham dinners.
"You destroyed her marriage," Diane wailed through the screen. "You called her husband and told him all our business! She’s packing her bags, Emily! Greg told her that if she doesn't check into an inpatient clinic for her shopping addiction, he’s filing for full custody of the boys!"
May you like
Emily stood up. She looked at her mother through the dark mesh.
"No, Mom," Emily said. "Melissa destroyed her own marriage. You helped her do it by paying for her lifestyle with money you didn't have. And I am simply refusing to pay the bill for either of you anymore."
