Chapter 24 - The Return to Mason
The drive to Mason took just under an hour, but every mile marker felt like a countdown into hostile territory. The sky was heavy and bruised with slate-gray clouds that promised a late-spring downpour, matching the heavy, oppressive atmosphere that seemed to cling to the town line as soon as we crossed it. We didn’t stop at the diner or wave to the neighbors who lingered on their manicured porches; we drove straight down Maple Street, past the towering maples that were already bursting with thick, dark-green leaves, and pulled right into the circular driveway of the ancestral Vance estate. The house looked exactly as it had on that cursed Christmas night—imposing, immaculately painted, and utterly devoid of any warmth or life. But there was one major difference: Arthur’s sleek, black Lincoln Navigator was parked haphazardly across the front lawn, crushing a bed of early tulips that Helen had spent weeks planting before her health failed. As soon as our car door slammed, the front door of the house swung open, and Arthur stepped out onto the porch. He wasn't wearing his usual tailored suit; he was dressed in a rumpled golf shirt and gray slacks, his hair uncombed, holding a highball glass with amber liquid sloshing over the rim. "Well, look who decided to crawl out from under their rock," Arthur shouted down the steps, his voice carrying easily across the dead grass. "Did you lose your map, Frank? Columbus is about fifty miles west, in case you forgot where the poor people live." Frank didn't run; he didn't even quicken his pace. He walked slowly up the concrete steps, his hands tucked casually into his pockets, while I stayed a few paces back, my hand resting protectively on Ellie’s shoulder—we had brought her along because hiding from our past wasn't something we wanted to teach her to do anymore. "Hello, Arthur," Frank said, stopping two steps below his brother. "Nice lawn ornament. Mom’s going to love what you did to her tulips." Arthur’s face flushed a deep, mottled red, the alcohol already doing the heavy lifting in his system. "Don't you dare talk to me about Mom," he snarled, pointing a thick finger at Frank's chest. "You killed her. The stress of your ungrateful little stunt at Christmas is what put her in that bed in the first place, and now you have the unmitigated gall to show your face here because some hack lawyer found a piece of paper in her desk?" "It’s not a piece of paper, Art," Frank replied, his voice terrifyingly calm. "It’s a deed. And as of June first—which is precisely four days from now—you have ninety days to find yourself a new place to store your golf clubs."
