Chapter 8: Keys text
The new keys arrived on a Monday.
Locksmith. Title paperwork. Bank accounts opened in both our names with dual alerts. The gold gate’s opener was reprogrammed. Margaret’s remaining belongings went into labeled boxes in the garage under an inventory list Ruiz required. Paige sent a cousin for her things and did not come herself. I considered that a minor mercy.
Gwen stood in the living room and turned in a slow circle, as if measuring air. “It doesn’t feel like their house anymore,” she said.
“It never should have,” I answered.
May you like
Treatment continued. A surgery date entered the calendar. I took leave from the possibility of returning north and fixed the loose railing on the back step instead. Small repairs. Proof of staying. When Gwen napped, I sat with the oncology binder and learned words I had not needed in a metal shop. Neutropenia. Margins. Reconstruction options for later. Fear lived in the margins of every page. I did not pretend otherwise. I just refused to let fear hand the pen back to my mother.
One evening the doorbell rang. Margaret, alone, without bracelets, asking through the glass to see me. I spoke through the door. She said she had been wrong about the three hundred dollars. She did not say she had been wrong about the years. I told her the settlement spoke for me. She left a bag of fruit on the mat. Gwen and I washed the fruit and ate it without ceremony. Poison is a choice. Fruit is just fruit when the door stays shut on the right side.
