Last Wednesday, I came home from work and found my sister and my mother standing on my front porch.
They were wearing identical smirks. The kind a cat wears when it has a mouse trapped under its paw.
“Hey, Clare,” Julia said. Her voice was sweet like syrup, the fake kind, and it made my stomach turn. “We need to talk.”
I stood at the bottom of the porch steps with my work bag on my shoulder and my keys in my hand. It was a little after six. The sun was going down behind the big maple tree my grandfather planted the year he bought this house. My grandmother’s wind chimes were tinkling by the front door.
“About what?” I asked.
“Inside,” Mom said. “This isn’t a conversation for the neighbors.”
I didn’t want to let them in. Every bone in my body was telling me not to. But Mrs. Kowalski from across the street was already standing at her mailbox pretending to read a catalog, so I unlocked the door.
They walked through my living room slowly. Julia ran her finger along the back of Grandma’s blue armchair. Mom looked up at the crown molding Grandpa installed himself in 1987. They looked at the walls the way people look at a house they’re thinking about buying.
Or a house they think they already own.
“What’s this about?” I asked. I didn’t sit down. Neither did they.
Julia turned to face me. A slow grin spread across her face. She reached into her designer purse, the cream leather one with the gold clasp that I happened to know cost $2,300, and pulled out a sleek black folder.
“Well, Clare, we have some news.” She held the folder against her chest like a winning lottery ticket. “We had the house signed into my name. You’re out by Friday.”
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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