Chapter 15 My Mother’s Boxes
The next morning, I called my father. He answered on the third ring.
“Ashley?”
I didn’t bother with small talk. “Is there anything else of my mother’s in storage?” I asked.
There was a pause.
“In storage?” he repeated carefully. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because I need to know,” I said. “Is there anything of hers left there?”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Yes,” he admitted. “Some boxes I couldn’t bring myself to go through. Her winter coats. Photo albums. A few personal things. Why?”
My chest tightened. “Where is the key?”
“In my desk,” he said automatically. “Top drawer in my office.”
I closed my eyes. “It’s not there anymore.”
“What?” His voice sharpened.
“Apple took it,” I said flatly. “She called me last night. She said she stole the key and threatened to burn everything.”
Silence. Then he said, “That’s ridiculous. She wouldn’t…”
“Check,” I interrupted. “Please.”
I heard him stand up. Footsteps. A drawer opening. Another drawer. Papers shifting.
Then nothing.
“…It’s gone,” he said quietly.
My jaw tightened. “She has it.”
“That doesn’t mean she’d actually…”
“She said she would,” I cut in. “And she’s crazy enough to do it.”
His voice rose. “I will talk to her. I’ll make her return it.”
“No,” I said. “You will tell me where the unit is.”
“Ashley...”
“I’m sending people there today,” I said. “I want everything removed before she can touch it. You will be there.”
“This is getting out of hand,” he snapped. “Those things are still in my name…”
“They are my mother’s,” I said coldly. “And after what you did, you have no right to them. You couldn’t protect her when she was alive, and you can’t protect her things now.”
He inhaled sharply. “That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair is your affair baby threatening to burn my mother’s memories,” I said. “You lost the right to decide anything the moment she said she’d set them on fire.”
“I will handle this,” he insisted.
“You already failed to,” I said. “Give me the address.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then, reluctantly, he said it.
I wrote it down.
“I’ll be there,” he added stiffly.
“You should be,” I replied. “Because if anything happens to those boxes, I will never forgive you.”
He didn’t answer. I ended the call first and started making calls.
By two in the afternoon, the boxes were already on their way to Chicago in a rented U-Haul.
My phone rang while I was standing by the window, watching traffic crawl below.
“It’s done,” my father said. “We packed everything. I watched them load it myself.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “How is Evan?”
“He’s… okay. Quiet. He misses his mom. And he asked about you.”
“I’ll come see him soon,” I said.
“Any news about Elena?” I already knew the answer.
He sighed. “No. She’s vanished into thin air.”
I made a noncommittal sound.
Then I said, “You should know something else.”
“What?”
“Apple was committed last night.”
Silence.
“What do you mean, committed?” he asked.
“I mean the police were called,” I said. “We were at a café and she completely lost control. She was screaming, threatening people, knocking things over. The officers decided she needed to be taken in for evaluation, so they placed her on a seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold.”
“Jesus Christ…” he murmured.
“I stayed until they came,” I said. “She was still yelling when they put her in the car.”
Silence stretched.
“I thought you should know,” I added calmly.
He sounded shaken now. “She… she did all that?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“I… I didn’t think her mental state was that bad,” he muttered.
“It was,” I replied. Silence again.
“I have to go,” I said. “Thank you for packing everything.”
When I ended the call, relief finally settled into my body. My mother’s things were safe.
Only then did I let myself think about the rest.
Over the years, I learned how to hurt my father without touching him. You didn’t attack him directly. That only made him defensive. You went after the things he cared about most. His pride. His reputation. His sense of control.
Four years ago, Nick had delivered the first real blow to my father’s business. His influence in Riverton was real, and when Apple turned him into an enemy, the family company suffered collateral damage. Contracts disappeared. Clients hesitated. Partnerships cooled.
The business survived. Barely.
After that, I helped his biggest competitor. I invested. I leaked information. I made sure their launches always came a few weeks before his. His bids failed by margins too small to contest. Deals collapsed for reasons that looked like coincidence.
I didn’t destroy the company outright.
I let it erode.
A thriving operation shrank to maybe a third of what it once was. Layoffs came in waves. Budgets tightened. Corners were cut. Entire departments disappeared.
I watched his empire slip quietly through his fingers.
And every time my father talked about rebuilding, about loyalty, about family, I thought about how easily he had replaced my mother.
I picked up my coffee and took a slow sip, standing in the quiet of my apartment while the city hummed faintly beyond the windows. The boxes were safe now, and Apple was contained, at least for the moment.
But the stillness didn’t feel peaceful. It felt like the pause between storms.
Somewhere in that U-Haul were pieces of a woman I barely remembered. The scent of her perfume lingering in old coats. Her handwriting tucked into photo albums. The quiet traces of a life she had lived before everything fell apart.
I tried to imagine opening those boxes. Seeing her face in photographs I had never seen. Touching the things she had once touched.
Part of me was terrified.
Another part had been waiting for it for years.