Chapter 5 - The Drive Home
The heater in Joan’s old Buick sedan hummed quietly as she navigated the winding suburban roads back toward her small bungalow. Outside, the frost was beginning to coat the oak branches, sparkling under the golden streetlights.
For the first time in six months, Joan felt her shoulders drop. The tension that had coiled inside her chest since Easter was gone, replaced by a deep, quiet calm.
Meanwhile, back at the Elm Street house, the atmosphere was explosive.
As soon as the last guests' car pulled out of the driveway, Brittany slammed the front door shut so hard the foyer mirror rattled.
"Are you out of your mind?!" Brittany shrieked, turning on Kevin. "She had a full, mint-condition service for twelve sitting in her attic this whole time, and she just handed it over to a teenager?!"
Kevin rubbed his temples, looking exhausted. "Brittany, drop it. It was my mother's wedding china. She can give it to whoever she wants."
"She did it to humiliate me, Kevin!" Brittany’s voice cracked with rage. "In front of my mother! In front of Chloe! She made me look like an absolute monster!"
"You handed her a paper plate!" Kevin finally snapped, his voice rising for the first time all evening. "You said 'you always break things' in front of twenty people over a five-dollar juice glass!"
"It was a joke!" Brittany yelled back, tears of anger welling in her eyes. "She’s hyper-sensitive! And now Emily has fifty thousand dollars worth of rare antique porcelain sitting in her bedroom, and she won't even let me touch the box!"
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Upstairs in her bedroom, Emily had pushed her heavy oak desk against the door. The yellowed cardboard box sat securely in the center of her bed. She gently lifted one of the blue-flowered tea cups, holding it up to the warm light of her desk lamp.
Downstairs, her parents' voices echoed through the floorboards, but Emily didn't care. She smiled, feeling closer to her grandmother than she ever had before.
