Chapter 7 - The Eviction at Sunset
The removal took precisely twenty-four minutes.
Patricia didn't go quietly. When Deputy Miller stood over her, his hand resting firmly on the black leather of his baton ring, she began grabbing items off the counters—ceramic plates, Eleanor’s antique silver-plated serving spoons, a decorative driftwood mirror.
"This is mine!" Patricia shrieked, clutching a silver teapot to her chest. "My mother gave this to me when I was sixteen! You can't steal my family heirlooms!"
"Put it down, Patricia," Adam Walsh commanded from the hall. "Every item in this cottage was inventoried under Eleanor’s personal property schedule, transferred via bill of sale to Susan Morgan on October 14, 2021. If you take one teaspoon through that door, Deputy Miller will charge you with misdemeanor larceny on the spot."
"It's my mother's!"
"And your mother gave it to the daughter she loved," Adam shot back.
Patricia looked at the teapot. Her fingers trembled with such violence that the silver lid rattled against the rim. With a sound of strangled fury, she slammed the teapot down onto the quartz counter with enough force to dent the silver base.
"You're a demon," Patricia spat at Susan, her eyes bloodshot, her face mottled with purple rage. "A cold, unfeeling monster. You've hated this family since the day Brooke was born. You were always jealous of her! Always bitter because nobody looked at you the way they looked at her!"
Susan stood by the window, her arms crossed over her chest, watching the sea gulls dive over the dunes.
"I wasn't jealous, Mom," Susan said, not even turning around. "I was waiting for you to be my mother. But you weren't a mother. You were just a bill collector who didn't want to work."
"Get out," Deputy Miller said, stepping directly into Patricia’s personal space, his face grim. "Now, ma'am. Do not make me lay hands on you."
Arthur took Patricia by the elbow. His face was entirely hollowed out, the skin sagging around his jawline like an old hound’s. "Come on, Patricia. Come on. It’s over."
"Don't touch me, you weak coward!" Patricia screamed, yanking her arm from his grasp, but she turned toward the door.
Brooke was already outside, sitting on the bottom step of the porch, clutching her phone to her ear, weeping hysterically into voicemail. *"Mason, please pick up! Mason, baby, I can explain everything! It was my parents, not me! Mason!"*
Deputy Miller escorted Patricia through the front doorway.
As Patricia reached the porch, her eyes fell upon the two items Susan had left on the weathered bench hours before: the $240 gold bracelet in its jeweler's box, and the framed photograph of Eleanor, Susan, and Patricia on the beach.
With an inarticulate scream of disgust, Patricia swiped her arm across the bench.
The framed photograph crashed onto the porch floorboards. The glass shattered into a hundred jagged, silver shards, the wooden frame splitting down the center.
The small jeweler's box tumbled down the seven wooden steps, landing in the gravel, where the lid popped open, exposing the delicate gold chain to the gray dust.
"I don't want your garbage!" Patricia screamed back into the house. "I don't want anything from you! You hear me?! You’re dead to me, Susan! You’re dead!"
Deputy Miller grabbed Patricia’s arm with iron authority. "That is enough! You are under arrest for disorderly conduct. Hands behind your back!"
"No! No! Arthur!" Patricia shrieked as the deputy spun her around against the side of the Lincoln, clicking the cold steel cuffs over her wrists with professional, practiced speed. "Arthur, do something!"
Arthur stood on the gravel, his mouth opening and closing, completely paralyzed.
Susan walked out onto the porch.
She didn't look at Patricia, who was being forced into the back seat of the Sheriff’s cruiser, her screams muffled behind the reinforced plastic partition.
Susan walked down the steps. She stopped at the bottom, bent down, and picked up the gold bracelet from the gravel. She blew the gray dust from the links, turned it over in her palm, and slipped it into her jeans pocket.
Then she walked over to Brooke’s Audi.
Arthur was standing beside the driver’s side door, his keys shaking in his hand.
"Susan..." Arthur whispered, his eyes swimming with tears. "Where are we supposed to go? Our house in Raleigh... the mortgage is thirty days past due. We were relying on... Patricia said you would help us with the summer taxes."
Susan looked at her father. She remembered him sitting at the kitchen table when she was twelve, watching Patricia tear up Susan’s application for an art camp because Brooke needed new ballet slippers. Arthur had looked down at his newspaper then, just as he was looking down at his keys now.
"Sell the Audi, Dad," Susan said softly. "Arthur Morgan needs to learn how to figure things out."
She turned her back on him and walked back up the porch steps.
May you like
Behind her, the engine of Brooke’s Audi started with a low, mechanical hum. The cruiser pulled out first, its red and blue lights flashing silently against the dunes as it headed toward the Dare County detention center in Manteo. The Audi followed, its tires spitting stone, disappearing down Sea Gull Lane until the sound of their exhaust was swallowed entirely by the roar of the Atlantic surf.
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