Chapter 7: Alone in the House That Was Still Mine
Sloan was in the living room when I walked in.
She was on her phone, legs crossed, entirely at ease on my sofa.
She looked up when I came through the door and did not move.
"We should talk," she said.
"We should." I set my bag down and sat in the armchair across from her.
The one that had been my husband's.
"Where's Harrison?"
"He needed space."
"From what?"
She smiled thinly.
"From the situation."
"You mean from me finding out about the money."
"I mean from the stress of all of this." She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward slightly.
"Lorraine.
I know this feels adversarial.
It doesn't have to be.
We're family."
"You filed a legal claim against my house this morning."
"That was a protective measure.
In case things escalated."
"Things escalated when you destroyed my birthday cake."
Her jaw tightened.
"That was an accident."
I took my phone from my bag and set it on the coffee table between us.
The video was already on screen, paused at the moment just before her elbow came out.
She looked at the phone.
Then at me.
Then back at the phone.
"Where did you get that?"
"Does it matter?"
Her composure cracked, just slightly — a tightening around the eyes, a stillness that was too controlled to be natural.
"That doesn't show anything," she said.
"It shows everything." I picked the phone back up.
"My attorney has the original.
So does the attorney handling the financial matter."
"The financial matter." She said it like the words tasted wrong.
"Harrison had access to that account.
There's no crjme in—"
"The account was designated for my emergencies.
Harrison knew that.
I have a witness to the conversation where my husband explained it to him." I stood.
"Patricia Vance will be sending a formal letter to your attorney today.
Fourteen days to respond."
Sloan stood too.
She was taller than me by several inches and she used it, drawing herself up in a way that was probably meant to feel like pressure.
"You're going to destroy your relationship with your son over money," she said.
"My son helped himself to eighteen thousand dollars from an account his father set up to protect me.
That is not my destruction.
That is his."
"He did it for us.
For our future.
Because you were never going to help us—"
"I let you live in my home for a year."
"We needed more than a room, Lorraine.
We needed a foundation.
We needed—"
"You needed to take what wasn't yours." I picked up my bag.
"I want you both out of my house.
Gerald Foss will be filing the formal eviction notice tomorrow.
You have legal rights as occupants and I am not asking you to leave tonight.
But I am telling you that I am done being quiet, done being managed, and done pretending that what has happened in this house for the past year was normal."
She stared at me.
"Harrison won't forgive you for this," she said.
Her voice had dropped.
The smoothness was gone entirely now.
What was underneath it was harder and colder.
"You'll lose him."
"Then I'll lose him." My voice didn't shake.
"But I will not lose myself again."
I walked past her to the hallway and up the stairs.
Behind me, I heard her pick up her phone.
"She's filing," she said to whoever answered.
"We need to move faster."
I stopped on the stairs.
Move faster.
May you like
There was something else.
Something I didn't know yet.
