Or rather, my mom was.
Emily was on the phone in the kitchen crying and shouting at someone.
I guessed her boyfriend or maybe her latest manager.
She didn’t even glance at me when I walked in.
Mom stood in the living room folding blankets into a box.
“Nate,” she said quietly. “This doesn’t have to be forever.”
I looked around at the place that used to feel like home.
Scuffed floors, a crack in the wall near the stairs that hadn’t been there before. The smell of burned incense lingering in the air.
It felt haunted by betrayal, by bitterness, by the slow erosion of love turned into obligation.
“Yes,” I said. “It does.”
She started to cry again.
“I did what I thought was best.”
“No,” I replied. “You did what was easiest. You picked the child who needed you the most, even if she took the most. You picked her because I never asked for anything. Because I kept quiet, because I let you.”
She opened her mouth, but I was already walking past her.
I stopped in what used to be my office.
The desk was gone, replaced by a cheap vanity.
I didn’t care.
I didn’t want any of it back.
I just wanted them out.
30 days passed.
They left on day 29.
The only thing they took care to clean was the fridge.
Probably because Emily wanted to take all the food.
They didn’t leave a note.
No apology.
Just a half torn sticky note on the bathroom mirror that said in her handwriting, “Whatever. Hope it was worth it.”
It was.
I spent the next few weeks restoring the house, repainting the walls, tossing out furniture, hiring professionals to clean up what I couldn’t.
I replaced the locks again.
I donated anything they left behind.
I planted new flowers in the front yard.