He Gave My House to His Ex, So I Took My Life Back novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Neighbor With the Coffee

A neighbor tells Jo the street was told she left Carlton; Robin takes her in without asking why; Cody texts that the locks change at nine.

I sat in my car at the end of Linden Court for two hours.

The engine was off, the box of papers was on the passenger seat, and I could see my own porch light from where I was parked.

Through the front window, someone had hung a string of lights I had never bought.

A knuckle tapped on my driver's window.

I jumped.

A man stood outside in a navy fire department jacket, holding two paper cups.

I rolled the window down two inches.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm Sam, from 121. We met at the block party."

I remembered him then.

He was the tall neighbor who had carried folding chairs for half the street and said almost nothing else.

"I saw you pull out of your driveway at six," he said. "You're still here."

"I'm thinking," I said.

"It's cold for thinking."

He held one cup toward the gap in the window.

"It's just coffee. I got off shift an hour ago."

I took it.

It was hot and too sweet, and I drank half of it before I said anything.

"Did you know?" I asked.

He looked down the street at my house.

"Know what?"

"That my husband's ex-wife is living in my bedroom."

Sam took a while to answer.

"I knew there were a lot of moving trucks," he said carefully. "And I know what the street was told."

"What was the street told?"

"That you and Carlton were separating. That you'd taken a long work assignment so everybody could have space. Colleen's been saying it at the mailboxes."

"Colleen has been saying it for how long?"

"Long enough that the woman next door brought Cody a casserole."

I put the coffee in the cup holder.

My hands were shaking, so I held the wheel.

"I've been home three hours," I said. "I haven't separated from anyone."

"I figured that out when I saw your face."

He pulled a business card from his jacket pocket, flipped it over and wrote a number on the back.

"That's my cell. If they do anything to the locks, or the garage, or if you just need a person standing on the porch, call me."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because it's your house," he said, "and I live across from it."

He said it plainly, with no speech attached.

I took the card.

When he walked back toward 121, I noticed he did not look at my house again.

I called my sister next.

Robin picked up before the first ring finished.

"Where are you?" she said.

"In the car. Down the street. Robin, Carlton has moved Colleen into the house, and she's in our bedroom, and he put me in the basement..."

"Come to mine," she said. "Right now. Don't go back there tonight."

"I need to tell you what happened."

"You can tell me when you're here. Just drive."

Twenty minutes later I was on her couch in her two-bedroom apartment with a blanket around me and a cup of tea I didn't want.

Robin sat on the coffee table in front of me in her cardigan with her hair clipped up.

She had been the one who showed up since our father died.

"Show me the email," she said.

I handed her my phone.

She read it slowly and gave it back.

"It's a paperwork mistake," she said. "Companies mix these up all the time."

"Robin, I do this for a living. Nobody mixes up an owner."

"Then he did something stupid. Carlton is stupid. He's always been soft and stupid." She rubbed my knee. "But Jo, listen. You don't need to fight over a house tonight."

"It's my house."

"It's a house, honey. You can have another one. You can stay here with me as long as you want. I'd love that."

"Dad's money is in that house."

"I know." She tucked the blanket around my shoulder. "I know it is."

She said it gently.

I wanted to believe the gentleness, so I did.

"I'll take the day off tomorrow," she said. "We can do pancakes. Don't go near the street, and don't call him. Let him wonder."

"I want to know what I'm allowed to do about it."

"Sleep first. You've been driving all day."

I let her put me in her spare room under a quilt that smelled of lavender detergent.

I lay awake with my father's old watch in my hand.

It was the one thing from the study I had been carrying in my bag, and it ticked so loudly in the dark that I put it under the pillow.

The card from Sam was in my other hand.

At 11:52 my phone lit the wall.

It was a text from a number I had saved as Cody, in a thread that had three messages in it, all about birthday gift cards.

"Jo it's Cody. Please don't tell my dad I'm texting."

I sat up.

Three dots appeared and disappeared twice.

Then: "Mom is getting a locksmith at nine tomorrow morning. She says it's to keep you out. Dad said okay. Please come before then."

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