Chapter 6 - The Unraveling of Miriam
With Frank facing federal indictment and Diane’s influencer career permanently burnt to ashes, the Calloway household dissolved into a Greek tragedy of mutual recrimination.
Miriam retreated to a small, shabby motel off the interstate, abandoned by the country club set who had once fawned over her charity galas. Her friends didn't return her phone calls; in high-society Columbus, poverty and scandal were far more contagious than any virus.
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, Miriam showed up at Marcus’s apartment building.
I was standing by the window watching the rain sheet against the glass when Marcus buzzed me from the lobby.
"She’s downstairs," Marcus said, his voice hesitant over the intercom. "Refuses to leave. She’s crying, Jo. Do you want me to call security?"
"No," I said, adjusting the strap of my walking boot. "Let her up."
Five minutes later, a soft knock rattled the apartment door.
I opened it.
Miriam Calloway looked like a queen who had been dragged through the mud. Her hair was unbrushed, her mascara running in dark streaks down her sunken cheeks, clutching a cheap plastic shopping bag containing what remained of her personal belongings.
"Josephine," she choked out, her knees buckling slightly as she stepped across the threshold. "Please... please, you have to help us. Diane has locked herself in the bathroom at the motel, she won't eat, she’s talking about—God, I don't even know what she’s talking about. And Frank... Frank is signing the papers downstairs with his lawyer. We have nothing left. We’re homeless."
"You were homeless the moment you decided that human life had a hierarchy," I said, leaning against the kitchen counter, looking down at her with a detachment that frightened even me.
Miriam fell to her knees on the hardwood floor, sobbing hysterically, reaching out to grab the hem of my trousers.
"I’m your mother! I carried you for nine months! I breastfed you when you were sick!" she wailed, the pathetic desperation of a tyrant stripped of her throne.
I looked down at her hands—the very hands that had shoved me toward the burning stairwell three weeks ago.
"When you looked at me through that smoke, Miriam, you didn't see a daughter. You saw a spare," I said quietly. "You saw someone who was inconvenient, someone whose existence threatened Diane’s inheritance and your precious social standing. You made your choice in twelve seconds. I’m just living with the consequences of it."
"We can start over!" she sobbed. "We can be a family again! Just drop the charges, Jo—"
"There is no family, Miriam," I interrupted, my voice dropping to a whisper. "There never was. There was just an audience performing for your approval. And the show is canceled."
I walked to the door, pulled it wide open, and pointed out into the hallway.
May you like
"Get out."
She stared at me, realizing with absolute, crushing finality that there was no bottom left to manipulate, no guilt trip left that could work. Slowly, pathetically, she picked herself up off the floor, clutched her plastic bag to her chest, and shuffled out into the grey Ohio rain.
