He Gave My House to His Ex, So I Took My Life Back novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Landlord
Jo comes home to find Carlton's ex-wife moving in and calling her the landlord, walks out with her papers, and learns her homeowner policy now names Colleen.
Colleen called me "the landlord" in front of the movers.
I was standing in my own front doorway with my work bag still on my shoulder.
Two men were carrying a king-size mattress up my staircase.
"Put the boxes marked Landlord in the basement," Colleen told them. "She won't mind."
She stood on the upstairs landing in a cream plush robe, pointing the movers left and right.
Colleen was my husband's ex-wife.
I had met her twice, at birthday dinners for her son, and both times she had hugged me.
"Jo!" she said now, bright and friendly. "You're early. Carlton said six."
I had just driven four hours home from three weeks of hurricane claims on the coast.
The alarm panel by the door was already switched off when I walked in.
My wedding photo was gone from the staircase wall.
In its place hung a school portrait of Colleen's son and a team picture.
"Where is Carlton?" I asked.
"Kitchen," she said. "Mind the boxes."
My husband stood at the kitchen island, tearing open a case of sports drinks.
Carlton Maddox. Thirty-four years old, married to me for fourteen months, and he would not look up.
"Why is there a mattress going up my stairs?" I said.
"Don't start, Jo. Just let me explain."
"I asked about the mattress."
He set the case down.
"Colleen needs a place for a few weeks. Her lease fell through. Cody needs stability, and he's fifteen."
"A few weeks," I said.
"I was going to tell you tonight."
I walked down the hall without waiting for the rest.
My study was gone.
My desk and my filing cabinet had been replaced by a gaming chair, three monitors and a headset on a stand.
Cody sat in the chair with the headphones half off.
"Hey, Jo," he said quietly. "I didn't know you didn't know."
He looked at the floor, and I believed him.
The room at the end of the hall was supposed to be a nursery.
I had picked the pale yellow paint myself, last spring, when we were still trying.
It was dark navy now, with a basketball hoop on the closet door and a poster of a point guard over the bed.
I went back to the kitchen.
"The nursery," I said.
"Cody needs his own room," Carlton said. "It's just a room."
"And the study?"
"He needs somewhere to do his homework."
"And where am I sleeping?"
Colleen leaned in the doorway, smiling.
"Oh, honey, we sorted that out. I'll take the master since it has the bathroom, and you two can have the basement suite. It's lovely down there."
I turned to Carlton.
"And you? Where are you sleeping?"
He paused too long.
"With you," he said. "Downstairs."
"Well," Colleen said, "if Carlton wants to be upstairs near Cody at night, that works too. The boy has bad nights."
Carlton said nothing.
He handed Cody a sports drink, handed one to Colleen, and opened one for himself.
"To the new house," he said.
Colleen clinked her bottle against his.
Cody gave a small, unhappy smile and drank.
No one held one out to me.
"When did she move in?" I asked.
"A few days ago," Carlton said.
"Actually, for three weeks now," Colleen began.
Carlton's head snapped toward her.
"I mean the deliveries," she said quickly. "Three weeks of deliveries."
I went up the stairs and opened the master closet.
My clothes were gone.
Colleen's trench coats hung in the space where my dresses had been, and her shoes were lined up on the rack my father had built for me.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was a text from my sister Robin, sent at 5:41, just before I turned onto our street.
"Whatever Carlton says tonight, don't do anything you can't undo. Call me first. Love you."
Robin always texted like that when she thought I was worn out.
I put the phone away and went down to the basement.
The boxes marked Nursery Decor had been shoved against the wall with a muddy footprint stamped on the top one.
The box marked Jo, Documents sat underneath all of them, and I pulled it out.
It held the deed, the mortgage papers and the bank statements from the house.
I carried it up the stairs.
Carlton stood at the bottom with his arms crossed.
"Jo, don't make a scene."
"You gave my house to your ex-wife," I said, "and you let her call me the landlord."
"It's temporary."
"Then you won't mind that I'm not here for it."
Colleen laughed softly from the landing.
"Don't be dramatic, honey."
So I stepped out.
I put the box in the passenger seat and drove to the end of Linden Court.
Before I could pick a direction, my phone lit up with an email from the insurance company that carried this house.
"Your homeowner policy for 118 Linden Court has been canceled at the owner's request.
A new policy has been issued.
Named insured: Colleen Thorndyke."
I adjust claims for a living.
I knew exactly what that meant.
Someone had told an insurer who owned my house, and it was not me.
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