Chapter 7: Sixty Thousand

By nine o'clock Saturday morning I was standing on the porch of the house on Cass Street with my key in the lock.

It didn't turn.

I tried again, then once more, rattling the knob.

A new brass deadbolt gleamed above the old one.

My boxes were stacked on the porch swing, six of them, taped shut and labeled in my stepmother's handwriting.

VALERIA. TAKE IT ALL.

I stood there with my suspension notice folded in my pocket and my father's old porch light buzzing over my head.

The curtain in the front window moved.

She was watching me.

I did not knock.

I did not cry.

I walked down the steps to the sidewalk and turned around so the whole street could see me.

An old man across the road was watering his hydrangeas.

Two joggers slowed at the corner.

"This was my mother's house!" I called, loud and clear. "My father died in it. She's put me out on the porch with a note, and I'm pregnant!"

A curtain twitched across the street.

Inside, the deadbolt snapped, and the front door opened a crack.

"Stop making a scene," my stepmother hissed.

"You changed the locks."

"It's my house. Your father left it to me."

"Where's my mother's jewelry box?"

Her face went blank, just for a moment.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"It was in the upstairs closet. Behind the quilts."

"You're hysterical." She started to close the door. "Take your boxes, Valeria. Go live with your boyfriend. Maybe he'll buy you a nicer house."

The door shut.

The old man turned off his hose.

"I'll help you with those," he said gruffly, and carried two of them to Jody's car.

Jody's apartment had one bedroom, one couch with a broken spring, and a refrigerator covered in fridge magnets from conferences she had not attended.

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