Chapter 4 - The Honeymoon Returns
On Thursday afternoon, my phone rang while I was trying to sleep before my overnight shift.
I rolled over on my thin mattress, squinting at the screen. The caller ID flashed: *Avery.*
She hadn’t called me since three days before the wedding, when she needed me to run to a boutique in Gilbert to pick up specialized double-sided body tape. I let it ring four times before answering.
“What?” I said, my voice thick with sleep.
“Where is Grandma?” Avery demanded without a greeting.
There was no background noise of island breezes or tropical birds; she was clearly back in the Valley. Her voice had that breathy, entitled cadence that always made my jaw ache.
“She’s resting,” I said, sitting up on the edge of the bed. “Why do you care?”
“Don't start with the attitude, Chloe. I’m standing in the casita right now, and her sewing junk is still blocking the entryway. The flooring specialists from Arcadia are arriving tomorrow morning to rip out the carpet, and they can't do their job with all her clutter everywhere.”
My grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles turned white.
“You’re in the casita?”
“Yes, obviously. Brooks and I got back from St. Barts last night. We have three shipping containers of wedding gifts arriving on Monday, and our lease on the townhouse in Old Town ends on the first. Mom told me Grandma had already moved her stuff into your spare room.”
“Grandma hasn’t moved anything,” I said, every word clipped and distinct. “Because that is her house. She has not authorized any remodel, Avery.”
A high, mocking laugh came through the receiver.
“Her house? Chloe, be serious for once. Grandma is almost eighty. She doesn't even know what year it is half the time.”
“She knows what year it is better than you do.”
“Whatever. Mom handles the estate. Mom said she’s taking care of the paperwork, and this space is being reassigned to us. We’re doing Grandma a favor anyway—that place was a fire hazard with all those old fabrics and patterns. It smelled like mothballs.”
“Did you get the check, Avery?” I asked abruptly.
A beat of silence hung on the line.
“What check?”
“The two-thousand-dollar wedding gift June mailed you ten days ago. The one from her Social Security savings.”
“Oh,” Avery said, her tone shifting slightly, dismissive and breezy. “Yeah, Brooks deposited the mobile batch yesterday. Look, tell her thanks, but honestly, two grand barely covered our baggage fees with all the designer luggage we had to bring back. If she wanted to give us a real gift, she would have hired a moving company to clear her crap out of here before our flight landed.”
I closed my eyes. A wave of cold, crystalline disgust washed through me.
“Listen to me very carefully, Avery,” I said, my voice dropping to a register that made my sister pause. “If you or any contractor touches one item in that casita—if you move a single quilt, a single photo frame, or a single spool of thread—I will have you arrested for criminal trespassing and grand larceny. I have the property deed on record. It does not belong to Eleanor. It does not belong to Dad. And it sure as hell does not belong to you and Brooks.”
“Are you insane?” Avery screeched, her composure shattering. “Mom is the executor! She has power of attorney!”
“Check the land records, little sister. Or better yet, ask your husband’s private equity friends how a real estate title works. Don't touch her things.”
I hung up.
My hands were shaking. I got out of bed, splashed cold water on my face in the bathroom, and walked out into the living room.
June was sitting on the sofa, her hands folded over a notepad. She had her reading glasses on, and beside her sat three thick manila envelopes she had pulled from her lockbox while I was sleeping.
“She’s at the casita,” June said. It wasn’t a question.
“She’s there,” I replied, leaning against the hallway doorframe. “She brought up the flooring crew.”
June looked down at her notepad. She had drawn three neat columns in blue ballpoint ink: *Date, Description, Amount.*
“Your grandfather paid eighty-two thousand dollars for that land in 1978,” June said quietly. “He put forty thousand down in cash—money he earned framing roofs in hundred-and-ten-degree heat during the summer of ’76. The rest we paid off in seven years. We didn’t take vacations. We didn't buy new cars.”
She turned the page.
“When Eleanor was twenty-two, she wanted a European tour before starting graduate school. We took out a second mortgage to pay for it. When she married Richard, we paid for the catering, the flowers, and the orchestra. When Richard’s logistics company went under in 2008, they had twenty-two credit cards maxed out. Walt was already sick with the lymphoma, but we let them move into the main house because your father was having chest pains from the stress.”
She looked up at me. Her pale blue eyes were entirely clear now. The fog of maternal denial had burned away, leaving behind the sharp, survivalist instinct of a woman who had outlived the Great Depression and built an empire out of dirt and pine beams.
“I have the receipts, Chloe,” she said.
“Receipts for what?”
“Every property tax payment for the last fifteen years. Every repair bill. When Richard replaced the pool pump three years ago and told Eleanor he paid eight thousand dollars for it, he didn't. I paid for it out of Walt’s life insurance remainder. I paid for the new roof on the main house in 2018.”
She tapped the notepad.
“They think because I live in the back and make potato salad for their parties, I’ve forgotten how to count. They think an old woman’s silence is the same thing as an old woman’s consent.”
She stood up, holding out the top manila envelope to me.
May you like
“Our appointment with Marcus Vance is at two o'clock tomorrow,” she said. “Go put on something respectable. We aren't going there to beg.”
***
