Chapter 9 - The Eviction Notice
You could hear the ice melting in the glasses.
Saskia took two steps forward, her green silk dress rustling against the stillness. “This is a joke. Merritt, tell them this is a joke. You’re doing this because of the loan? Hayes will pay the loan! Hayes, tell her!”
She turned to Hayes.
Hayes wasn't looking at her.
He was looking at his phone, which was now displaying an emergency press release from the *Philadelphia Inquirer* business section.
“Hayes?” Saskia reached for his arm.
Hayes pulled his arm away as if she had tried to hand him a live snake.
“Is it true?” he asked, his voice low, shaking with an icy rage that terrified her more than the deputies ever could.
“Is what true, baby?”
“The default notice. The forged signatures on the Apex Commercial accounts. The three hundred and eighteen thousand dollars.”
The room went completely breathless. The board members, the country club companions, the cousins who had laughed at me moving boxes—every single one of them was leaning in, their social masks dropping to reveal the naked, vulgar hunger of people witnessing an execution.
“Hayes, it was a mistake,” Saskia stammered, her porcelain facade finally fracturing down the center. “It was just a paperwork error! My accountant—”
“You don't have an accountant, Saskia,” I said, walking slowly into the center of the foyer.
My low heels clicked against the marble.
*Clack. Clack. Clack.*
“You have an iPad, a printer, and my social security number,” I said, stopping four feet from her. “You used my credit to pay the deposit on the penthouse you told everyone you bought. You used my dead grandfather’s money to pay for that dress. And when I asked you to pay your debts on Easter Sunday, you tried to crack my skull open with an iron skillet.”
“You’re lying!” Calliope screamed, lunging toward me.
Sergeant Kowalski moved with surprising speed for a large man, stepping between my mother and me with one broad arm extended. “Ma'am. Back up. Now.”
“This is my home!” Calliope wept, her hands clawing at the sergeant's sleeve. “I chose the drapes! I designed the gardens! Thaddeus, do something!”
Thaddeus looked around the room.
He looked at Uncle Robert, who looked down at his shoes.
He looked at the regional bank directors, who were already quietly edging toward the side doors, eager to get to their cars before their names could be associated with the disaster.
“Merritt,” Thaddeus whispered, his voice cracking, all the aristocratic bravado stripped away to reveal the terrified, bankrupt clerk beneath. “Merritt, please. Think of the family name.”
“I am thinking of the family name,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “Arthur Thorne’s name. A man who built roads. A man who paid his debts. A man who gave you everything you ever had, and watched you turn it into a cheap parlor trick.”
Frank Callahan stepped up beside Sergeant Kowalski and pulled two large sets of keys from his pocket.
“Under the terms of the eviction order,” Frank announced, “the former occupants have sixty minutes to collect their personal clothing and medications. All vehicles leased under corporate entities subject to the Apex commercial freeze will remain on the property. All jewelry purchased with trust disbursements since October 2019 will remain in the safe for forensic valuation.”
“Sixty minutes?” Calliope wailed. “I have twenty-two closets! I have furs! I have my grandmother’s silver!”
“The silver belongs to Arthur’s trust, Mrs. Thorne,” Frank said without looking up from his clipboard. “And moving vans have already been arranged to take your personal wardrobes to an extended-stay motel in King of Prussia.”
“A motel?” Saskia’s voice reached a pitch that made the crystal drops on the chandelier hum. “I can't stay in a motel! I have my launch party!”
Hayes Montgomery set his scotch glass on the grand piano with a clean, deliberate *thunk*.
“The launch party is canceled,” Hayes said.
Saskia spun around. “Hayes! No! We have three hundred people coming!”
“The launch party is canceled, Saskia,” Hayes repeated, his voice devoid of all warmth. “And the wedding is canceled. Vanguard Heritage pulled our underwriting ten minutes ago when the felony indictment hit the public docket. My father’s firm is filing a formal notice of disassociation on Monday morning.”
He didn't wait for her to respond.
He walked past her, past my mother who was now weeping hysterically on the bottom step of the spiral staircase, and stopped in front of me.
He looked at my black cast, then at the dressing on my neck.
“I’m sorry, Merritt,” he said quietly. “I didn't know.”
“Yes, you did, Hayes,” I replied, not giving him the comfort of an easy absolution. “You just didn't care as long as the packaging was pretty.”
Hayes blinked, swallowed hard, and walked out the front doors into the twilight.
One by one, the guests followed him.
They didn't say goodbye. They didn't offer condolences. They scurried through the foyer with their heads down, hiding their faces from the local news van that had just pulled up to the foot of the circular driveway, its satellite dish already rising into the evening air.
Within thirty minutes, the grand house on Meadowbrook Lane was empty of its audience.
Only the four of us remained, surrounded by the catering trays, the wilting peonies, and two silent sheriff's deputies standing by the door with their hands on their belts.
Saskia sat on the marble floor, her emerald dress bunched around her knees, her mascara running in black rivers down her cheeks.
She looked up at me—the older sister who had cleaned her dishes, who had ironed her blouses, who had taken the blame for every broken vase for twenty-four years.
“What am I supposed to do?” she sobbed, sounding for the first time in her life like a frightened child. “Merritt, what am I supposed to do?”
I looked down at her.
I thought of the sound my bone had made when the cast iron struck it.
I thought of the coldness of the kitchen floor, and the wineglass my mother had sipped while the gravy burned my flesh.
“You’re going to get up,” I said softly.
She sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “And then?”
May you like
“And then you’re going to find a job,” I said. “And learn how to wash your own dishes.”
***
