Chapter 6 - The Knock at the Door
The peace lasted exactly twenty-four hours.
On Friday evening, right around dinner time, a sharp, imperious rapping echoed against our front door. It wasn't the friendly, double-tap knock of a neighbor or the rhythmic thud of a package delivery. It was the sharp, commanding rat-a-tat of someone who believed every door in Rogers should swing wide the moment they raised a knuckle.
I was at the stove stirring a pot of ground beef for tacos; Dwight was sitting at the kitchen table helping Cal glue together a balsa wood airplane wing.
"Stay here," Dwight said, setting his hobby knife down on a paper towel.
Before he could reach the hallway, the front door rattled again—harder this time.
I wiped my hands on my apron and followed him into the narrow hallway. Dwight pulled the interior door open, revealing the heavy storm door. Standing on our welcome mat was my sister, Trisha.
She didn't look like the chic, untouchable boutique owner who had shrugged off her nephew’s injury a week ago. Her designer sunglasses were gone, her hair was pulled back into a frantic, messy knot held together by a single plastic claw clip, and her eyes were rimmed with red from crying or lack of sleep—or both. Behind her, parked right across our gravel drive, was her silver Nissan Altima with its hazard lights blinking in the gathering dusk.
"Open the door, Dwight," Trisha demanded, her voice cracking around the edges. "I need to talk to Jody."
Dwight didn't move an inch. He kept his broad shoulders squared in the doorway, his hand resting casually on the brass deadbolt. "The door stays shut, Trisha. What do you want?"
"I want my sister," she snapped, her voice rising into a jagged register. "Jody! I know you're standing right there! You have to help me. The commercial leasing office called an hour ago. They emptied my showroom floor. All my pottery wheels, the kiln I haven't finished paying off, the inventory for the holiday market—it's all sitting in a rented U-Haul truck parked behind the Harps grocery store, and they're charging me eighty bucks a day just to keep it in the lot!"
I stepped out from behind Dwight, resting my hand lightly on his forearm. He looked down at me, his jaw tight, before he stepped aside just enough for me to look through the glass of the storm door.
"You should have thought about that before you let Mom drag you out of here early," I said, my voice entirely level. "You had a choice, Trisha. You chose your dinner party."
Trisha’s face crumpled. She grabbed the metal handle of the storm door and gave it a desperate shake. "Mom and Dad are no help! Dad tried to go down to the bank in Bentonville this morning to see about a small business loan, and the loan officer laughed in his face because his credit score is sitting in the low five-hundreds! They don't have any money, Jody! They've been living off your credit card for six years, and now they're threatening to cancel Mom’s club membership permanently if they don't settle the back balance by Monday!"
"That sounds like their problem," I said. "Not mine."
"It's our family!" she screamed, her voice cracking into a sob as she pounded her fist against the aluminum frame of the door. "If I don't have a storefront by the first of the month, I default on my supplier contracts! I'll be sued for twenty thousand dollars in breach of contract! Jody, please! Just sign the new guarantor form. Just for one year! I’ll pay you back, I swear to God I will!"
I looked at her through the glass—at the panic in her eyes, at the expensive silk blouse that was now wrinkled and stained with coffee, at the total collapse of the illusion she and my parents had maintained for over a decade.
"You didn't care about a twenty-thousand-dollar lawsuit when you shoved an eight-year-old boy into a folding table," I said quietly. "You didn't care about contracts when you walked out of his birthday party without even checking to see if he was bleeding."
"He was just being dramatic!" she cried, though the fight was rapidly draining out of her voice. "He’s a kid, he heals fast!"
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"He's my son," I said. "And we're done paying your bills."
Before she could answer, I reached out, clicked the interior deadbolt into place with a firm, metallic thunk, and pulled the wooden door shut. Through the thick wood, I could hear her screaming my name once more before her footsteps crunched across the gravel and her car doors slammed shut. The silver Altima reversed down our driveway with tires spinning in the loose stones, kicking up a cloud of dust that settled slowly over the empty yard.
