Melissa folded her arms. Triumphant.
My mother clutched the itinerary to her chest.
And for a moment, I was eight years old again.
Standing in our kitchen in Cary. In 1994. My father standing over me. Deciding what was fair.
Melissa gets the bigger bedroom because she’s younger.
Melissa gets to go to the beach with her friends because she asked first.
Melissa gets the car on Saturday because she has a date. You can take the bus.
Morgan, don’t be difficult. Your sister needs it more.
And everyone else obeyed.
My mother obeyed. I obeyed.
Except this wasn’t his kitchen.
And I wasn’t eight.
Deputy Hale stepped forward.
Calm. Unhurried. He moved to stand beside me.
“Sir,” he said. “I need you to listen carefully.”
My father drew himself up.
He’s six-two. He was a linebacker at Appalachian State in 1976. He’s used to being the biggest man in the room.
“I don’t care who you are,” he said. “I’m not leaving my own child’s house.”
Deputy Hale opened his folder.
He took out a document. Two pages. On letterhead.
OKAFOR & ASSOCIATES, PLLC — ATTORNEYS AT LAW — RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA
My father saw the letterhead.
He saw the name.
His face changed.
But before the deputy could say anything, Melissa shouted.
“You can’t throw us out! We don’t have anywhere else to go!”
Everybody turned and looked at her.
She was standing in the middle of my living room. In my eight-hundred-dollar silk robe. Her arms wrapped around herself. Her face red. Her eyes wet.
“We don’t have anywhere to go,” she said again. Her voice cracked. “Okay? Is that what you want to hear? We don’t have a house.”
The room went silent.
Ben was standing in the doorway of the guest suite. In a T-shirt and sweatpants. His glasses crooked.
He closed his eyes.
My mother put her hand over her mouth.
My father turned on Melissa.
“Melissa,” he said. “That’s enough.”
“No,” Melissa said. “No, Dad. She’s calling the police. She has a deputy here. She’s going to find out anyway.”
I looked at my sister.
“What do you mean,” I said slowly, “you don’t have a house?”
Melissa didn’t answer.
She looked at my father.
My father looked at the floor.
My mother spoke.
Very quietly.
“We sold it,” she said.
I turned and looked at her.
“Sold what?”
“The house,” my mother whispered. “In Cary. On Bridlewood Drive.”
My childhood home. Four bedrooms. A basketball hoop in the driveway. A crabapple tree in the front yard that my father planted the year I was born.
“We closed on Tuesday,” my mother said.
I stared at her.
“Why?”
My mother looked at my father.
My father didn’t look up.
“Your father,” my mother said. “He made some investments. A few years ago. With a man from church. A real estate thing. In Florida. Condos.”
She swallowed.
“It didn’t work out,” she said. “He borrowed against the house. Twice. To cover the losses. And then the payments—we couldn’t—”
She stopped.
“How much?” I said.
Nobody answered.
“Dad,” I said. “How much?”
My father lifted his head.
He looked at me.
For the first time in my entire life, my father looked at me without the head tilt. Without the pressed lips. Without the raised eyebrows.
He just looked tired.
And old.
And afraid.
“Three hundred and forty thousand,” he said.
I didn’t say anything.
“We sold the house to pay it off,” my mother said. “We got almost everything back. Almost. There’s a little left. On a credit card. Forty thousand. We’re working on it.”
“Where were you going to live?”
My mother didn’t answer.
I looked at Melissa.
“And you?” I said. “You said we. You don’t have a house either?”
Melissa’s chin trembled.
She looked at Ben.
Ben stepped out of the doorway.
“I lost my job,” Ben said quietly. “In May. The district cut the chemistry program at my school. Budget. They laid off four teachers.”
He pushed his glasses up.
“Melissa was working part-time,” he said. “At a boutique. In Alpharetta. It closed in July.”
He looked at the floor.
“We were renting,” he said. “We got behind. Three months. The landlord filed. We had to be out by the first.”
“Of October,” I said.
“Of October,” Ben said. “Five days ago.”
I looked around my living room.
At the four enormous suitcases. The two coolers. The folding crib. The beach chairs. The boxes.
Not a vacation.
Everything they owned.
“Where have you been for five days?” I asked.
Melissa wiped her eyes with the sleeve of my robe.
“At Mom and Dad’s,” she said. “Until Tuesday. Until they closed. Then at a Days Inn in Durham. For two nights.”
She laughed. A terrible, broken laugh.
“Then Mom said, Let’s go to Morgan’s.”
I turned and looked at my mother.
“Let’s go to Morgan’s,” I repeated.
My mother had her phone in her hand. Clutched against her cardigan.
The phone she’d turned face-down last night.
“Mom,” I said. “What were you going to tell me?”
My mother went pale.
“What do you mean?”
“Aunt Linda texted you,” I said. “At 4:47. Did you tell her yet about the house? Or are you waiting till she’s settled?”
My mother’s mouth opened.
“And you texted her last night,” I said. “Haven’t told her yet. Going to wait till morning. Phil says once we’re in, she won’t say no. She never does.”
