I was right about Jessica.
She lasted exactly eleven days.
It started small. It always does with people who can’t help themselves.
Dirty dishes left in the sink. Wet towels on the bathroom floor. Little comments under her breath when she thought I couldn’t hear. “Yes, Your Majesty.” “Whatever the warden says.”
I wrote everything down. I took pictures with my phone. Thomas told me to keep a record, just in case.
David did start looking for work. Sort of. He applied for three jobs in eleven days. All three were sales management positions he wasn’t qualified for.
He did sell the comic book, though. Through Heritage Auctions. It took three weeks. It brought in $11,400. He wrote me a check for half. $5,700.
He didn’t say a word when he handed it to me. Neither did I.
Then came a Tuesday morning in April.
For several days, I’d noticed things in my bedroom were slightly out of place. A dresser drawer not quite closed. My jewelry box turned a little sideways on the dresser.
At first, I thought I was being paranoid.
Then I walked into my bedroom after breakfast and found my bank statements spread out across my desk. I always keep them in a blue accordion file in the bottom drawer. Filed by month. Every single one.
Now they were scattered all over the desk like somebody had been reading them in a hurry.
I’d taken a photo of that desk two days earlier, just in case. With the date and time stamped on it.
I stood in my bedroom doorway.
“Jessica,” I called down the stairs. “Could you come up here, please?”
She appeared in my doorway with that fake innocent face she wore whenever she’d been caught.
“You wanted me?”
I pointed at my desk.
“Can you explain why my financial documents are all over my desk?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
But her eyes flicked to the papers and back to me way too fast.
“My bank statements were filed in a folder in that drawer,” I said. “Now they’re spread across my desk like somebody’s been reading them.”
“Maybe you forgot where you put them,” Jessica said. “That happens when people get older.”
There it was.
I took out my phone. I showed her the photo of my neat desk from two days earlier. The date and the time printed right there at the bottom.
“This proves my papers were exactly where I said they were,” I said. “Unless you’re going to tell me I have memory problems about taking pictures too.”
She knew she’d been caught.
Her whole face changed. The fake sweetness was gone. What was underneath was ugly.
“Fine!” she snapped. “I was looking at your bank statements! Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be broke while living with somebody who has thousands of dollars just sitting in accounts doing nothing?”
“So you went through my private papers.”
“I needed to know what we were dealing with! David’s been talking about asking you for money for a business idea. I wanted to see if you could actually afford it.”
“What business idea?”
“He wants to start a landscaping company. He needs about thirty thousand dollars for equipment and a truck.”
Thirty thousand dollars.
They’d been planning to ask me for thirty thousand dollars. While paying nothing toward the house.
“Jessica,” I said quietly. “Pack your things.”
She laughed. She actually laughed.
“You can’t kick me out for looking at some papers. That’s ridiculous.”
I held up my phone.
“I’ve been recording this whole conversation. You just admitted you went through my private financial documents without permission. That’s a clear violation of the agreement you signed.”
The laughter died on her face.
“You were recording me?”
“It’s my house, Jessica. Oregon allows you to record a conversation you’re part of, as long as you say so. And I’m saying so.”
She stormed downstairs, screaming for David.
“David! Your mother’s lost her mind! She’s trying to kick me out over some stupid papers!”
David came out of the living room, where he’d been watching ESPN all morning instead of job hunting.
“What’s going on?”
“Your wife violated our agreement,” I said. “She went through my private financial documents. Then she told me I was too old to remember where I put things.”
David looked from Jessica to me. I could see him calculating. His wife or his free housing. His marriage or his comfortable life.
“Mom, maybe we can work this out,” he said. “Jess, just apologize.”
“I’m not apologizing for anything! She’s the one who made this ridiculous contract with all these impossible rules!”
“The rules aren’t impossible,” I said. “You just have to treat me with basic respect.”
“I won’t be controlled by somebody who’s using her money to make us dance like puppets!”
And that’s when David finally made a choice.
“Jessica. Stop.”
His voice was firmer than I’d heard it in years.
“Just stop talking.”
She whipped around to face him.
“Are you seriously taking her side right now?”
“I’m taking the side of having a roof over our heads!” he snapped. “Do you have any idea how good we have it here? Free house. Free food. No responsibilities except being decent human beings!”
“She treats us like servants!”
“It’s not our house!” David exploded. “It’s her house! Her food! Her electricity! Her everything! And instead of being grateful, you act like we’re entitled to it!”
I stood very still on the bottom stair.
It was the first time I’d ever seen David stand up to his wife about anything.
“Grateful?” Jessica shrieked. “Grateful for what?”
“For not sleeping in your car!” David shouted.
That stopped her cold.
“We wouldn’t be sleeping in my car,” she said quietly. “Because I sold my car three months ago. To pay our credit card bills.”
The room went silent.
David stared at her.
“You sold your car? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was trying to handle our problems without running to Mommy.”
“By going through my mother’s private papers?”
Jessica’s shoulders dropped. All the fight seemed to drain out of her at once.
“David, we’re thirty thousand dollars in debt,” she said. “We’ve got no income. No prospects. When you mentioned the business, I thought if I knew how much money your mother had…”
“You’d figure out the best way to get it from me,” I finished.
She didn’t deny it.
