Chapter 9 - The Restoration
Six months later.
The house was warm, the smell of cinnamon and coffee drifting from the kitchen.
I sat in my green velvet armchair in the center of the living room, a thick knitted blanket draped over my lap. The abstract paintings were gone, replaced by the silver-framed photos of Walter, me, and our early days at the hardware store.
The automatic payments were set up again, but they weren't coming from my pension.
They were coming from Alyssa’s new bank account.
After Gavin’s indictment—he had pled guilty to avoid a drawn-out trial and was serving four years in a minimum-security facility—Alyssa had thrown herself into reclaiming her life. She used her degree in marketing to land a high-paying remote job.
We lived together, not as a supervised employee and an arrogant boss, but as partners. We split the groceries. She paid the internet and the electricity. I paid the water and the property taxes.
“Eleanor!” Alyssa’s voice called from the kitchen.
She walked into the living room, heavily pregnant now, carrying two mugs of tea. She handed one to me and carefully lowered herself onto the white sofa, resting a hand on her round belly.
“The lawyer called this morning,” Alyssa said, blowing on her tea. “The bank officially dropped the foreclosure proceedings. Because the trust predates the fraudulent loan by two decades, their claim is entirely void. They’re writing off the eighty-five thousand as a loss tied to Gavin’s criminal case.”
I took a sip of my tea, feeling the warmth spread through my chest. “So it’s over.”
“It’s over,” Alyssa smiled.
The front door was suddenly pushed open. The mail carrier had dropped a stack of envelopes on the entryway table.
Alyssa waddled over to grab them. She flipped through the pile. Bills, a magazine, and a thick white envelope with a prison return address.
She stopped, staring at Gavin’s handwriting.
Six months ago, she would have opened it, desperate for an apology or an explanation.
Instead, she walked into the kitchen, lifted the lid of the trash can, and dropped the unopened letter inside.
She walked back into the living room and sat down next to me.
“You didn’t want to read it?” I asked gently.
“Nothing he has to say matters anymore,” Alyssa replied, resting her hand on her stomach. She looked around the living room, at the photos, at the green chair, and finally at me. “We have everything we need right here.”
I smiled, leaning back into the soft velvet of Walter’s favorite chair.
May you like
Outside, the wind rustled the leaves of the old oak tree. Inside, the washing machine hummed quietly in the back room, washing a load of tiny, pastel-colored baby blankets.
And nobody complained about the water bill.
