Chapter 1 - GET OUT
“Get out of my house!”
Jessica’s voice hit me before I had both feet across the threshold.
I stood there with my suitcase in one hand and a paper bag of Christmas cookies in the other. I was seventy-two years old. I had owned that red-brick house for thirty-eight years. Yet for one ridiculous second, I wondered if I had opened the wrong door.
Then I saw my son behind her.
Matthew was forty-six, broad-shouldered like his father, with the same dark eyes. He stood at the foot of the stairs and watched his wife tell me to leave.
He didn’t say a word.
“Matthew,” I said. “What is going on?”
Jessica stepped closer. “You can’t just walk in whenever you want.”
“I live here.”
“You’ve been gone for two weeks.”
“I was taking care of my sister.”
She looked at my suitcase. “And now you’re back.”
The cookies slipped from my hand. The bag landed sideways, spilling powdered sugar across the floor George and I had refinished together.
That was when I noticed the hallway.
Their coats hung from the hooks. Their shoes covered the mat. Boxes were stacked beside the stairs. George’s brown jacket, which had hung on the last hook since the day he died, was gone.
“Where is George’s jacket?”
Jessica glanced at Matthew. “I packed it.”
“Where?”
“The garage. Along with the rest of the clutter.”
I looked toward the living room. Our Christmas tree stood by the window, but the crooked wooden star George had made was missing. So were Matthew’s paper angels, my mother’s glass bell, and every mismatched ornament we had collected over nearly four decades.
The tree was silver and white now. Beautiful, if you didn’t know whose memories had been taken off it.
“Why are your things in my house?” I asked.
Jessica crossed her arms. “Because we moved in.”
Matthew finally spoke. “Mom, our lease ended. We were going to tell you when you got home.”
“You had fourteen days to call me.”
“We wanted to explain in person.”
Jessica gave a short laugh. “There’s a perfectly good house sitting here. Why should we keep paying rent?”
I looked at Matthew. “Did you agree to this?”
He stared at the floor.
That was answer enough.
Then Jessica picked up my suitcase and set it beside the door.
“You can use the spare room for now,” she said.
I took the suitcase back from her. “For now?”
She met my eyes. “Until we figure out what works for everyone.”
I walked past her and headed upstairs. Matthew called my name, but I kept going.
At the end of the hall, my bedroom door stood open.
Jessica’s dresses filled half my closet. Her perfume bottles covered my dresser. Her jewelry box sat beside the photograph of George and me on our thirtieth anniversary.
And on my bed, folded beneath a pile of her sweaters, was the blue quilt George had given me during his final Christmas.
I turned to my son. “How long have you been sleeping in my bed?”
Matthew opened his mouth.
May you like
Jessica answered for him.
“Since the day after you left.”
