Chapter 6 - The Eviction
The room seemed to tilt on its axis.
“What… what do you mean, you resign?” Margaret stammered, her voice thin and childish. “Clara, who is going to give me my evening medication? Who is going to help me into bed? Ryan doesn't know how to work the lift! He’ll drop me!”
“Not my problem,” I said smoothly.
I picked up the manila folder once more. There was one last piece of paper inside. A single white page printed on official legal letterhead from *Harrington & Associates, Real Estate Attorneys*.
I slid it across the table until it rested against Margaret’s wine glass.
“What is that?” Uncle Dave asked, speaking for the first time in an hour, his voice hushed and solemn.
“That,” I announced, “is an official Thirty-Day Notice to Vacate the Premises. Directed to Margaret Walker, Ryan Walker, and any unauthorized residents currently residing at 742 Evergreen Terrace.”
Margaret screamed. It was a guttural, terrifying sound that tore from the back of her throat.
“You’re evicting me?! From Arthur’s house?! You can’t do this! The law won't let you throw an old, crippled woman onto the street!”
“The law will, Margaret,” I answered with chilling precision. “Because I am not throwing you onto the street. You are an adult with no legal lease, residing on private property owned exclusively by Clara Miller LLC. I have already entered into a preliminary purchase agreement with *Oakridge Land Developments*. They’ve been trying to buy this two-acre corner lot for three years to build luxury townhomes. They made an all-cash offer forty percent above market value.”
I checked my watch. It was four-fifteen in the afternoon.
“The closing inspection is scheduled for next Monday. The sale proceeds will be wired directly into my personal offshore investment account. You have until January thirty-first at midnight to remove your personal belongings. Whatever is left in this house on February first will be hauled to the county dump by the demolition crew.”
“No!” Margaret wailed, clawing at her own face. “Ryan! Ryan, don’t let her do this! My garden! Arthur’s study! Everything I have is here!”
Ryan scrambled to his feet, lunging toward me. “Clara, you can’t sell the house! Where is she supposed to go? Where are WE supposed to go?”
“*We* aren't going anywhere, Ryan,” I said, stepping aside cleanly as he tried to grasp my shoulders.
I looked over at Nicole, who was clutching her designer coat around herself like a straightjacket.
“Nicole has that beautiful four-bedroom loft in Venice Beach,” I said with a malicious grin. “The one with the polished concrete floors and the ocean breeze. The one paid for with your mother’s stolen pension money. Margaret can move in with her golden daughter. Nicole can learn how to crush pills into applesauce. Nicole can learn how to change a soiled adult diaper at three o’clock in the morning. Nicole can give up her yoga retreats and her mimosa brunches to sit by Margaret’s bedside and listen to her complain about the cold.”
Every pair of eyes in the room swung back to Nicole.
Nicole took three frantic steps backward toward the front hallway, her head shaking violently. “No. No way. I can’t take her!”
Margaret froze, looking at her daughter as if she had been slapped. “Nicole? What do you mean you can’t take me?”
“Mother, I live on the fourth floor of an industrial loft!” Nicole cried out, her voice devoid of any warmth or affection. “There’s no elevator! The doorways aren't wide enough for a wheelchair! And I run a business—I work fourteen hours a day! I can’t be home changing bedpans! You’ll have to go to an assisted living facility!”
“An assisted living facility?” Margaret’s voice broke into a high, shrill sob. “With what money?! You stole all my money!”
“You can apply for state Medicaid!” Nicole screamed back, completely unhinged now. “They put people in the county home in Riverside! It’s fine! People live there all the time!”
“The county home in Riverside?” Aunt Sarah gasped in horror. “Nicole, that place was investigated for neglect last winter! They leave patients strapped in chairs for eight hours at a time!”
“Then you take her, Sarah!” Nicole spat, her face twisted in pure venom. “You take her! Because I’m not ruining my life and my career to be a nursemaid to a bitter old woman who does nothing but complain!”
Margaret stared at Nicole. The daughter she had bragged about for six years. The daughter whose picture sat on the nightstand beside her bed. The daughter she had chosen over the woman who had kept her clean, warm, and fed.
Margaret’s chest heaved. A terrible, suffocating realization settled over her face. She looked like a woman who had just realized the god she worshiped was nothing but smoke and ash.
“You don't love me,” Margaret whispered, the realization draining the last ounce of life from her eyes. “You never loved me. You just wanted Arthur’s money.”
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Nicole didn't answer. She grabbed her leather handbag from the sideboard, wrapped her camel-hair coat tightly around her shoulders, and bolted through the front door, slamming it behind her so hard the chandelier above our heads rattled like dry bones.
***
