Chapter 9 - The Eviction from My Soul
A month later, the court proceedings concluded with a quiet, anti-climactic thud.
Evelyn Vance took a deferred adjudication plea on the forgery and identity theft charges. At sixty-six years old, she avoided jail time only because Sandra negotiated a restitution agreement that stripped Evelyn of every asset she owned, including her share of the Elm Street house and her late-model jewelry.
She was ordered to complete two hundred hours of community service and submit to court-mandated financial oversight.
My father had moved into an assisted living annex paid for by his meager state pension, his spirit entirely broken, spending his days watching daytime television in a vinyl armchair.
I was loading groceries into the back of my car outside the local market when I heard the shuffle of footsteps behind me.
I turned.
Evelyn stood there. She had lost weight. Her lavender cardigan was gone, replaced by a drab gray coat that was missing a button. Her silver hair, once styled every Friday at the salon, was pulled back in a hurried, uneven knot.
She looked small. She looked old.
“Marlo,” she said, her voice dry and rasping.
I didn't reach for my phone. I didn't get angry. The rage had burned itself out weeks ago, leaving behind only a clean, cool detachment.
“You’re within five hundred feet, Evelyn,” I said quietly. “The injunction is permanent.”
“I’m not here to fight,” she whispered, taking a small step forward, her hands clutching a cheap synthetic handbag against her stomach. “I have nothing left, Marlo. Your father won’t speak to me. Chris won’t answer my calls. They took the house. They took everything.”
“You took it yourself,” I replied. “One bet at a time.”
Tears welled in her pale eyes—real tears, perhaps, or perhaps just the self-pity of an apex predator that had finally been caught in its own snare.
“I’m your mother,” she pleaded, her chin quivering. “How can you walk into church on Sunday knowing your mother is living in a shared basement apartment on social security? Doesn't the fourth commandment mean anything to you?”
I finished putting the carton of milk into the trunk, closed the hatch, and looked her in the eyes.
“Honor your father and your mother,” I said softly. “I honored you for thirty years, Evelyn. I honored you until you tried to destroy the child God entrusted to me. You broke the covenant, not me.”
“She’s not your blood!” she hissed, the mask slipping for just a fraction of a second, the old, bitter venom flashing in her gaze before vanishing back into helplessness. “You ruined your whole family for a stranger!”
“She’s not a stranger,” I said, opening my driver’s side door. “She’s my daughter. And you’re just someone I used to know.”
I got in, locked the doors, and started the engine.
May you like
In the rearview mirror, as I pulled away into the warm afternoon light, I saw Evelyn Vance standing alone in the asphalt parking lot, growing smaller and smaller until she disappeared into the glare of the traffic behind me.
***
