Chapter Ten
After lunch I found an unopened package of mousetraps in a decorative basket on the fireplace hearth. Apparently, Mom knew she had a problem, and cared enough to order supplies, but not enough to use them.
“Were you that depressed?” I asked the room. My eyes darted toward the popcorn ceiling, as if I might see her there. “What was it?” I asked, continuing the one-sided conversation. “How did you go from the woman I grew up with to this?” I waved the package around the room. “You used to fight back!”
Dad had been gone nearly two decades. Why hadn’t she healed? Did she even try?
“Why couldn’t we just be friends?” I asked.
A horrendous thought occurred for the second time, and my stomach rolled. Did she blame me for her abusive marriage? Just as I’d blamed her? She might not have married Dad, if she didn’t have to hide her pregnancy.
Did she resent me?
The thought was gutting, and I felt the pain as it cut through my core.
My phone vibrated on the coffee table with a notification. My attorney’s office had sent an email. I sat gingerly on the couch, careful not to smash a mouse or jam a knitting needle where it didn’t belong. Then I opened the message.
Updates on my case, yada yada yada. The divorce paperwork was officially filed, and the courts had created a calendar of events on our behalf. Please see attached.
I opened the scanned document with excitement in my soul.
The only thing better than not living with my terrible husband was knowing soon we wouldn’t be married at all.
According to the schedule, a temporary hearing would occur in two weeks, followed by two mandatory mediations in the next four months, a pretrial hearing thirty days later, and the trial the month after that.
I did some quick mental math and determined I could be free from Robert’s reign in just over six months. As long as everything went smoothly.
If we wound up in a legal battle, I had no doubt he’d drag it out as long as possible to punish me. I definitely didn’t need that. I already had enough obstacles to overcome.
I acknowledged my receipt of the schedule, then added the events to my phone’s calendar.
According to the most recent chat with my attorney, the temporary hearing would be an in-and-out procedure because Camilla was an adult.
For Robert and me, the court would determine how our expenses were handled until the divorce finalized.
My attorney believed I would maintain access to our bank accounts to pay bills and living expenses throughout the process. I certainly hoped so.
I hadn’t had a job since high school, and I didn’t know where to begin looking for one. Thankfully, I had a little more time to figure that out. Assuming I didn’t lose Mom’s house.
The thought put me back to business. I needed to locate Mom’s bankbooks, or paperwork that would lead me to her available cash.
Additionally, I was on the lookout for anything of value I could return or sell for cash.
And if I was really lucky, I’d come across Sébastien Allard’s old mailing address.
It’s unlikely his parents were still alive, but if they were, they might still live in the same home.
I could write and ask for a way to reach him.
Meanwhile, I called a local outreach center advertising free pickup on gently used furniture, before setting up the catch-and-release mousetraps.
Then I got back to work.
I didn’t stop until I was certain I’d collapse and get buried under piles of Mom’s things, only to be found months from now by trained spelunkers, probably hired by Alicia or Cami.
I carried a box I’d filled with treasures into the kitchen and cracked open a bottle of water from the fridge.
Mom had sandwiched photo albums of my youth between books and magazines from decades past. I flipped through those quickly, then shook a few pieces of jewelry from the bottom of a bud vase—a diamond-and-ruby tennis bracelet with matching earrings.
I set them aside to take somewhere for appraisal, then fanned the pages of a dozen notebooks filled with Mom’s messy scrawl.
She hadn’t let me get close to her in life. Maybe reading her written thoughts would help me know her in death.
I was halfway through a chicken salad sandwich and one of the old photo albums when a truck with the local donation center’s logo rattled into the driveway.
In the album, Mom had neatly arranged pictures of me blowing out candles on every birthday cake for eighteen years, along with a number of similar images from my twenties and a few of Camilla while she was still in diapers.
My mother was many things, but nostalgic and sentimental weren’t among the adjectives that came to mind.
Yet, the photos disagreed.
A pair of men donned work gloves as they approached the house.
Humiliation and embarrassment wobbled through me as I met them at the door.
I wanted to distance myself from the chaos of this place, but shame made me bite my tongue.
My mother had lifelong problems I didn’t understand.
I doubted the volunteers from the shelter would, either, and they probably didn’t care.
I swallowed the grief of my loss, and Mom’s. Then I opened the door.
“Hi,” I said, forcing hospitality into my tone. “Thank you for coming. Let me show you where I’ve set everything on the back patio. You can drive the truck alongside the house to shorten your path.”
One of the men turned back for the truck. The other shook my hand. “I’m Albert, and we’re grateful for every donation. Thank you so much for giving us a call.”
My throat tightened. I nodded and led him to the patio.
By the time the sun set, the living room was scrubbed and empty, the carpet drying after my second pass with the steamer.
I found a pearl necklace inside one of Mom’s tchotchkes and a watch that I guessed was worth thousands.
I had an appointment to see a jewelry appraiser in the morning.
One way or another, I would pay off the property taxes and keep this house.
The air on the first floor smelled of cleansers and hope as I admired my work. I, however, smelled like a swamp monster. So I headed for the shower.
I dumped my things into the first-floor bathroom and started the water, then returned to the kitchen for a bottle of sweet tea from the fridge.
I checked the mousetraps, both wishing I would and would not find mice in them.
I didn’t want the creatures in the house, but I had no idea what to do if I caught them.
Was I supposed to set them free outside? That seemed silly. Wouldn’t they just walk right back in?
I returned to the bathroom a moment later and peeled sweaty clothes from my achy frame. I raked tangles from ratty hair and took one more drink of sweet tea before stepping under the impressive spray.
The shock hit my system like a baseball bat.
“Cold! Fuck!”
My feet slid on the wet tile floor as I bounced and leaped to safety. My heart pounded, and my skin pebbled. I gripped the sink’s edge to steady myself, then cranked the hot water and flushed the toilet. A few moments later, the shower warmed to tepid.
I took the fastest shower possible, dried off, and left a voicemail on a local plumber’s answering machine requesting he stop by to take a look at the situation as soon as possible.
Then I trudged across the lawn to my bed inside the trailer, Mom’s photo albums and notebooks tucked beneath one crooked arm.
Raisin stayed at the house.
The next few days followed a similar pattern, except Ilona began visiting after breakfast and staying through lunch. We marked items for the upcoming yard sale and reminisced about the days when I ran wild in the neighborhood.
The jewelry I found, along with a small check from a joint account with Robert, was enough to appease the county auditor and keep my property off the auction block. I still had to deal with the utility-shutoff notices, but I was counting my wins where I found them.
My phone buzzed, and I stilled to check the screen.
“That’s not Robert, is it?” Alicia asked. She stopped by frequently, as promised, and helped any way she could. Her presence alone meant everything to me.
Ilona made a sour face.
“No.” I shook my head. “He’s pretending I don’t exist. This looks like an order for the Invisible Baker.
” I had the calls forwarded from my other phone, now that I no longer had a reason to hide them.
I opened the message and skimmed. “Someone wants to place an order for a coworker’s birthday.
Thirty-six mini vanilla layer cakes for the staff lounge. ”
My friends and I looked to Mom’s newly cleaned kitchen.
“I can’t bake here,” I said. “I still haven’t caught that mouse. Gives me the ick knowing it’s still running free. That’s a health code violation for sure, right?”
Alicia wrinkled her nose. “No luck with the traps?”
“No, but I also plugged in some things I found in the spare bedroom that claim to emit sounds to keep pests away. Maybe they worked?”
Alicia didn’t look convinced. “Well, you can always use my kitchen, and I’m glad to help.”
“Same offer,” Ilona said. “But why not use your other kitchen?”
I glanced through the back window. “The trailer?”
“No,” she said. “The one in that mini mansion of yours.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “Robert would love that.”
Alicia straightened. “It’s still half your house, no matter what that butthead says. You moved out, but you’re allowed to be there. Right? Is there something in the paperwork from your hearing that says you’re not?”
“I don’t think so, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I never planned to go back.”
“So bake while he’s at work,” she said. “No harm, no foul. He’ll never know, and you can bake in the space you’re most comfortable. Plus, you can get more done with the oversized double ovens than you can here or at my place.”
“I bought my stove the year you were born,” Ilona said.
I pinched my bottom lip between my teeth.