Chapter 3 - Your Eviction Begins Today
I set the folder aside and used the counter to pull myself up.
My body protested so violently that black spots crowded my vision.
Still, I stood.
I reached for my coat from the back of the chair.
The navy wool one I had put there that morning when I still believed the worst thing about the day would be the fever.
I slipped it on slowly.
Zipped it.
Patricia smirked.
“If you leave this house,” she said, “you’ll end up begging on the streets.”
I turned toward her.
My face was pale.
My eyes were glassy.
My sweater was wrinkled from the fall.
Pills still lay scattered across the floor.
But my voice did not shake.
“I won’t be the one without a home.”
Ethan’s expression flickered.
There.
Finally.
The first sign of doubt.
I stepped toward the dining table and placed the signed papers in front of him.
Patricia’s smile thinned.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
I looked directly at her.
“You will,” I said. “Because this house belongs to me, and your eviction begins today.”
The kitchen went silent.
Not peaceful.
Not shocked.
Silent the way a locked door is silent before someone realizes they are on the wrong side.
Ethan stood slowly.
“What did you just say?”
I picked up my phone from the counter.
It was already recording.
Not video.
Audio.
Enough.
“My attorney is waiting outside,” I said.
Patricia laughed once.
“Your attorney?”
The doorbell rang.
Ethan turned toward the front hall.
His face changed before he moved.
Because he understood what Patricia did not.
I had not said I was calling my attorney.
I said she was waiting.
The first person who entered was not my attorney.
It was my neighbor, Mrs. Calloway, a retired nurse from across the street, wearing a raincoat over pajamas and carrying a medical bag.
Behind her stood a uniformed paramedic crew.
Behind them, my attorney, Rachel Monroe, in a camel coat, holding a leather folder and the calm expression of a woman who had expected ugliness and arrived prepared for worse.
Rachel looked first at me.
Then at the pills on the floor.
Then at the thermometer.
Then at Ethan.
Her voice was quiet.
“Evelyn, did he push you?”
For three seconds, I could not answer.
Not because I was unsure.
Because hearing my name spoken kindly inside that kitchen almost undid me.
Evelyn.
Not sweetheart.
Not wife.
Not dramatic.
Not useless.
My name.
May you like
I nodded.
“Yes.”
