In the picture, my husband stood beside me twenty-seven years younger, laughing at something outside the camera.
He had been gone a long time, but the sight of that damaged frame did something the insults had not.
It ended my hesitation.
“Robert,” I said, “I’m changing the locks today.
I’m changing the alarm code.
Your spare key will no longer work.”
Jessica stepped toward me.
“You can’t do that.”
I looked at her.
“Watch me.”
Her mother made an offended sound.
“Eleanor, there are children here.
You cannot simply throw an entire family into the street because your feelings were hurt.”
“My feelings are not the issue,” I said.
“Ownership is.”
Jessica folded her arms.
“We have nowhere else to go this weekend.”
I almost laughed.
The previous morning, she had told a seventy-year-old widow exactly the same thing about her own home.
“There’s a hotel a few miles away,” I said.
“I know because I paid $285 to sleep there last night.”
Robert spoke quietly through the phone.
“Jessica, pack your things.”
She spun toward the sound as if he had slapped the wall beside her.
“You’re taking her side?”
“I’m taking the side of the person who owns the house.”
“No.
You’re humiliating me in front of my family.”
I finally understood something then.
Jessica could insult me in front of everyone without flinching.
She could put my possessions into garbage bags.
She could occupy my bedroom and hand out rooms in my home like prizes.
But the moment embarrassment touched her, it became cruelty.
Veronica stepped forward.
“We drove all this way.
The boys were promised the beach.”
I looked past her at the cracked flowerpots outside.
“And I was promised basic respect.”
Jessica’s mother shook her head.
“This is why families fall apart.
Older people become possessive and impossible.”
I held up the deed.
“This is not possessiveness.
This is a property record.”
Jessica lunged for the folder.
I moved it behind my back.
“Don’t be childish,” she said.
“Give me that.”
“No.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing anymore.”
That answer seemed to frighten her more than shouting would have.
I walked out of the garage and began photographing the rest of the damage.
The cigarette burn.
The beer cans.
The cooler track through the flower bed.
