Chapter 2: The House
The house was exactly as it appeared in the photographs Russell had sent me.
Pale brick. Wide porch. Green backyard. The two-story suburban dream I had funded with every overtime shift and every dollar I had denied myself for five years.
I stood on the sidewalk with my parents and Felix behind me and stared at the front door I had never walked through.
A silver SUV I didn’t recognize was parked in the driveway. Through the front window I could see movement—Russell’s silhouette and a woman’s laugh.
My mother touched my arm.
“Maren, maybe we should just go to a shelter. We don’t need to do this today.”
I looked at Felix. His eyes were wide and scared, the same way they had been at the bus station. He was clutching the plastic bag that held the only toy he had left.
I knelt down in front of him.
“Mommy is going to fix this,” I said. “Stay here with Nana and Papa for a minute, okay?”
He nodded.
I walked up the porch steps and rang the doorbell.
Russell opened the door wearing sweatpants and a smile that died the moment he saw me.
“Maren.”
The woman behind him—younger, with long dark hair and a glass of wine in her hand—froze.
I kept my voice calm.
“I came home early.”
Russell’s eyes darted to my parents and Felix on the sidewalk, then back to me.
“This isn’t a good time.”
I looked past him into the house I had paid for.
The furniture I had chosen from catalogs during late-night phone calls. The kitchen island where I had imagined Felix eating breakfast. The staircase I had approved the railing for.
I pulled out my phone and opened the property records I had saved months earlier when I first began to have doubts.
“The deed is in my name, Russell. The mortgage was paid with my money. The entire down payment came from my account. You changed the locks on a house I own.”
The woman behind him set her wine glass down.
Russell’s face went red.
“You abandoned us for five years. I had to make decisions.”
I stepped closer.
“You told my son and my elderly parents they were no longer welcome in the home I paid for. You left them at a bus station. You brought another woman into my house.”
He tried to close the door.
May you like
I put my hand on it.
“One phone call, Russell. That’s all it’s going to take.”
