My Mother Witnessed Their Wedding

Chapter 2 The Paper Trail

Elena Ruiz had been my attorney since I'd bought the Bell Harbor property. She was fifty-two, precise, and had once made a real estate developer cry in a conference room. She answered on the second ring.

"Julia," she said. "It's eleven o'clock."

"I need to sell the house."

There was a pause. "The Bell Harbor house?"

"Yes."

"The one you just finished renovating."

"Yes."

"Julia, that house is worth nearly two million. If you sell it now, you'll pay capital gains. You'll lose money."

"I don't care."

Elena was quiet for a moment. I heard her set down something ceramic, probably her tea cup. "What happened?"

I told her. The envelope. The license. The receipt. My mother's bags of organic blueberries.

"God," Elena said.

"I want it done before the end of the month."

"Julia, a sale like this takes time. You need a buyer. You need inspections. The market is slow in September."

"Then find a buyer who wants it fast. I'll take a loss."

She tried to argue with me, but I wasn't in a mood to be argued with. I'd spent six years being accommodating. Six years letting Peter choose the restaurants, letting Alicia pick the movies, letting my mother decide what chairs went in the dining room. I'd been so careful to be fair, to be generous, to be the one who made things easy.

I was done being easy.

The next morning, I called into work and said I needed a few personal days. My boss, who had been happy with my numbers for three years straight, told me to take all the time I needed. That was the thing about being reliable. No one noticed until you stopped.

I spent the day going through the rest of the house. Peter's golf clubs were in the garage. His suits were in the closet. His shaving cream was still in the medicine cabinet. I boxed all of it and left it in the front hallway. Then I went upstairs to my mother's room.

Her things were still there. Thirty years of accumulation. Photographs of her and my father in better times. Bookshelves full of paperback mysteries. A jewelry box I'd never seen opened. On her nightstand was a framed photo of Peter and Alicia at a restaurant, both of them laughing, Alicia's hand on his arm. It must have been taken recently. Alicia was wearing the necklace I'd bought her for her birthday last year.

I left the photo where it was. I wasn't going to touch her things. I was done touching her things.

By the end of the day, I had three boxes of Peter's belongings, one bag of Alicia's gifts, and a plan. The house would go on the market by the end of the week. My mother's occupancy would end with the sale. She could find her own place to live. She could find her own furniture. She could find her own blueberries.

Peter called that night. I wasn't sure how he'd heard, but he sounded panicked.

"Julia, what are you doing?"

"Packing your things."

"Don't do this. Let's talk."

"Talk about what? The wedding? The pregnancy? Which part did you want to explain?"

He was quiet. I could hear the television in the background. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way."

"Engagements rarely are."

"I still care about you."

"That's kind of you."

"Julia, don't be like this. You're the one who pushed me away. You were always working. You never had time for us."

I thought about the weekends I'd spent painting the trim while he was at the club. The dinners I'd cooked that he'd eaten in front of the television. The nights I'd sat up waiting for him while he stayed at Alicia's, telling myself they were just friends.

"You're right," I said. "I should have watched more carefully."

I hung up before he could answer.