No one was inside, so I closed the door, checked it twice, then returned to my chair, plate, and strawberries.
I opened an internet browser on my phone as I ate and searched for ways to make fast money. My toenails needed fresh paint, which eliminated the possibility of selling feet pics, and without baking, I didn’t have any salable skills.
A wave of grief and defeat hit hard enough to knock a weaker woman off her chair, but I didn’t have time for a breakdown.
I lived in a compact warehouse of sorts. Surely there was a big-ticket item or two that I could sell for quick cash.
If not, I could always get a pedicure.
Chapter Ten
After lunch I found an unopened package of mousetraps in a decorative basket on the fireplace hearth. Apparently, Mom knew she had a problem, and cared enough to order supplies, but not enough to use them.
“Were you that depressed?” I asked the room. My eyes darted toward the popcorn ceiling, as if I might see her there. “What was it?” I asked, continuing the one-sided conversation. “How did you go from the woman I grew up with to this?” I waved the package around the room. “You used to fight back!”
Dad had been gone nearly two decades. Why hadn’t she healed? Did she even try?
“Why couldn’t we just be friends?” I asked.
A horrendous thought occurred for the second time, and my stomach rolled. Did she blame me for her abusive marriage? Just as I’d blamed her? She might not have married Dad, if she didn’t have to hide her pregnancy.
Did she resent me?
The thought was gutting, and I felt the pain as it cut through my core.
My phone vibrated on the coffee table with a notification. My attorney’s office had sent an email. I sat gingerly on the couch, careful not to smash a mouse or jam a knitting needle where it didn’t belong. Then I opened the message.
Updates on my case, yada yada yada. The divorce paperwork was officially filed, and the courts had created a calendar of events on our behalf.Please see attached.
I opened the scanned document with excitement in my soul.
The only thing better than not living with my terrible husband was knowing soon we wouldn’t be married at all.
According to the schedule, a temporary hearing would occur in two weeks, followed by two mandatory mediations in the next four months, a pretrial hearing thirty days later, and the trial the month after that. I did some quick mental math and determined I could be free from Robert’s reign in just over six months. As long as everything went smoothly.
If we wound up in a legal battle, I had no doubt he’d drag it out as long as possible to punish me. I definitely didn’t need that. I already had enough obstacles to overcome.
I acknowledged my receipt of the schedule, then added the events to my phone’s calendar. According to the most recent chat with my attorney, the temporary hearing would be an in-and-out procedure because Camilla was an adult. For Robert and me, the court would determine how our expenses were handled until the divorce finalized. My attorney believed I would maintain access to our bank accounts to pay bills and living expenses throughout the process. I certainly hoped so.
I hadn’t had a job since high school, and I didn’t know where to begin looking for one. Thankfully, I had a little more time to figure that out. Assuming I didn’t lose Mom’s house.
The thought put me back to business. I needed to locate Mom’s bankbooks, or paperwork that would lead me to her available cash. Additionally, I was on the lookout for anything of value I could return or sell for cash. And if I was really lucky, I’d come across Sébastien Allard’s old mailing address. It’s unlikely his parents were still alive, but if they were, they might still live in the same home. I could write and ask for a way to reach him.
Meanwhile, I called a local outreach center advertising free pickup on gently used furniture, before setting up the catch-and-release mousetraps.
Then I got back to work.
I didn’t stop until I was certain I’d collapse and get buried under piles of Mom’s things, only to be found months from now by trained spelunkers, probably hired by Alicia or Cami.
I carried a box I’d filled with treasures into the kitchen and cracked open a bottle of water from the fridge. Mom had sandwiched photo albums of my youth between books and magazines from decades past. I flipped through those quickly, then shook a few pieces of jewelry from the bottom of a bud vase—a diamond-and-ruby tennis bracelet with matching earrings. I set them aside to take somewhere for appraisal, then fanned the pages of a dozen notebooks filled with Mom’s messy scrawl.
She hadn’t let me get close to her in life. Maybe reading her written thoughts would help me know her in death.
I was halfway through a chicken salad sandwich and one of the old photo albums when a truck with the local donation center’s logo rattled into the driveway. In the album, Mom had neatly arranged pictures of me blowing out candles on every birthday cake for eighteen years, along with a number of similar images from my twenties and a few of Camilla while she was still in diapers. My mother was many things, but nostalgic and sentimental weren’t among the adjectives that came to mind.
Yet, the photos disagreed.
A pair of men donned work gloves as they approached the house.
