Chapter 4: The Delivery
Phil finally called on the twentieth day of my exile.
“Mom received a letter from the insurance company,” he spat, his voice trembling with defensive rage. “Sherry says you canceled it maliciously. You are weaponizing an eighty-one-year-old woman’s home to prove a point!”
I sat on the cold concrete of Rita’s back steps. “I merely stopped paying a bill that I do not owe. Who did you tell her was paying it, Phil?”
“Sherry says there’s a county investigator poking around!” he yelled, ignoring my question. “You called the state on my sister!”
“I made the call any decent citizen is required to make.”
He breathed heavily into the receiver. “Thirty-one years, Mona.”
“I am acutely aware of the timeline, Phil. I survived all of it.” I hung up.
The next transmission came from Evan. He had driven down to check on his grandmother.
“Mom, it’s bad,” Evan whispered, the ambient hum of Bernice’s kitchen audible in the background. “She’s alone. The curtains are open. She knows her mail is being diverted. Aunt Sherry is demanding an emergency family meeting this Saturday. Uncle Kent typed up a new document for Grandma to sign, retroactively agreeing to the deed transfer to stop the county investigation.”
“Is she going to sign it?” I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“I don’t know. She just keeps asking me questions… Mom, she asked me to do the math on how long Grandpa has been dead. She’s counting the tax cycles. And she asked for you. She told me to find Mona.”
“Tell her I will accept her call.”
“She doesn’t have your number, Mom.”
“Check the inside of the mailbox lid.”
At 9:40 PM, my cell phone illuminated. An Indiana landline. For the first time in thirty-one years, Bernice Larkin was calling me directly.
“They tell me you reported us out of spite,” Bernice said. No hello. Just straight to the marrow.
“I executed my legal duty as a federal employee,” I replied evenly. “I would have done it for a stranger on my route.”
A long silence stretched across the time zones. I could hear that old refrigerator humming.
“My own mother-in-law forced me to eat my meals over the sink for eleven years,” Bernice said, her voice suddenly sounding incredibly frail, stripped of its usual armor. “Norm never defended me. When it became my house… I made sure I was the one deciding who sat at the wood.”
“I know, Bernice. I ate at that sink for thirty years.”
“Sherry is forcing a meeting on Saturday. Kent is bringing a contract. The county investigator is returning on Tuesday.” She paused, the pride catching in her throat. “I want you there.”
I looked toward the guest room, where the blue folder rested in my suitcase. “I will come for you,” I told her. “But I am not staying.”
I booked a round-trip ticket that night. Saturday morning to Indianapolis, returning to Denver on Sunday. I did not inform Phil. I did not tell Evan. This was my delivery.
