Chapter 6 - The Small Apartment Across Town
By February, the transition was complete.
Aunt Sylvia called me on a Saturday morning while I was packing my suitcase for Rome. Her voice was bright, brisk, and dripping with the kind of satisfaction only an older aunt who has watched her siblings make terrible life choices for seventy years can muster.
"They're out, honey," Sylvia announced without preamble.
I paused, a silk blouse half-folded in my hand. "Out of the house?"
"Sold to a young couple with three dogs and a landscaping business," Sylvia chuckled. "The closing happened on Thursday. After paying off the remaining liens and bank debts, your parents walked away with precisely three thousand four hundred dollars to their name. Can you believe it? Thirty years in that house, and all they have left is enough cash to buy a used washing machine and a sofa."
"Where are they living?" I asked quietly, zipping the garment bag.
"A little second-floor apartment on Maple Street," Sylvia said. "Right by the freight line. Every time a coal train goes by at two in the morning, the kitchen cabinets rattle. Lauren and Mason are sleeping in the second bedroom, and Derek is nowhere to be found—he’s crashed on some buddy's couch downtown while his lawyer drafts divorce papers."
I shook my head slowly. "What about Eric?"
"Eric?" Sylvia scoffed. "Eric told your mother that his apartment building has strict occupancy rules and he couldn't take them in. He hasn't visited them once since they moved. He’s too busy trying to scrape together enough cash for his car insurance so his BMW doesn't get towed from his gym parking lot."
I felt a strange pang in my chest—not of pity, but of profound closure. The illusion of family loyalty, constructed over decades of emotional manipulation and silent sacrifices, had finally burned to ash. What remained was the bare, unvarnished truth: they had never loved me for who I was; they had only loved what I could do for them.
"Well," I said steadily, "they have each other."
"That they do, honey," Sylvia agreed softly. "And you have your trip to Rome. Have a wonderful time, Rachel. Eat some pasta for me."
"I will, Sylvia. Thanks for everything."
That evening, my Uber arrived outside my apartment building at 6:00 PM. I walked out into the crisp winter air, my luggage rolling smoothly behind me across the concrete. As the car pulled away toward the airport, I looked out the tinted window at the glowing lights of Columbus fading into the distance.
For three years, I had carried the financial weight of people who despised my success. For thirty-six years, I had bent myself into a pretzel trying to earn the approval of people who viewed my love as a currency.
May you like
No more.
The plane took off into the starless night sky, lifting me above the clouds, carrying me toward a continent where nobody knew my name, where nobody expected me to fix their lives, and where every dollar in my bank account belonged entirely to me.
