Chapter 4: The Delivery
\nPhil finally called on the twentieth day of my exile.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom received a letter from the insurance company,\u201d he spat, his voice trembling with defensive rage. \u201cSherry says you canceled it maliciously. You are weaponizing an eighty-one-year-old woman\u2019s home to prove a point!\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat on the cold concrete of Rita\u2019s back steps. \u201cI merely stopped paying a bill that I do not owe. Who did you tell her was paying it, Phil?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSherry says there\u2019s a county investigator poking around!\u201d he yelled, ignoring my question. \u201cYou called the state on my sister!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI made the call any decent citizen is required to make.\u201d<\/p>\n
He breathed heavily into the receiver. \u201cThirty-one years, Mona.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am acutely aware of the timeline, Phil. I survived all of it.\u201d I hung up.<\/p>\n
The next transmission came from Evan. He had driven down to check on his grandmother.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom, it\u2019s bad,\u201d Evan whispered, the ambient hum of Bernice\u2019s kitchen audible in the background. \u201cShe\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs she going to sign it?\u201d I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know. She just keeps asking me questions\u2026 Mom, she asked me to do the math on how long Grandpa has been dead. She\u2019s counting the tax cycles. And she asked for you. She told me to find Mona.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTell her I will accept her call.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe doesn\u2019t have your number, Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCheck the inside of the mailbox lid.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey tell me you reported us out of spite,\u201d Bernice said. No hello. Just straight to the marrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI executed my legal duty as a federal employee,\u201d I replied evenly. \u201cI would have done it for a stranger on my route.\u201d<\/p>\n
A long silence stretched across the time zones. I could hear that old refrigerator humming.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy own mother-in-law forced me to eat my meals over the sink for eleven years,\u201d Bernice said, her voice suddenly sounding incredibly frail, stripped of its usual armor. \u201cNorm never defended me. When it became my house\u2026 I made sure I was the one deciding who sat at the wood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know, Bernice. I ate at that sink for thirty years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSherry is forcing a meeting on Saturday. Kent is bringing a contract. The county investigator is returning on Tuesday.\u201d She paused, the pride catching in her throat. \u201cI want you there.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked toward the guest room, where the blue folder rested in my suitcase. \u201cI will come for you,\u201d I told her. \u201cBut I am not staying.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chapter 4: The Delivery Phil finally called on the twentieth day of my exile. \u201cMom received a letter from the insurance company,\u201d he spat, his voice trembling with defensive rage. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family-drama-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13056,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13049\/revisions\/13056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}