He Gave My House to His Ex, So I Took My Life Back novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Before Nine

Jo returns with Sam as a witness and takes the master bedroom back; Colleen comes down wearing Jo's mother's pearl earrings.

I left Robin's apartment at 7:10 with a note on her counter that said, "Gone to get my things."

I texted Sam from the parking lot.

"Can you stand on my porch for a while? I'll explain."

He wrote back in under a minute.

"Already dressed. Meet you on the street."

At 8:15 I parked in front of 118 and he was waiting at the curb in jeans and a gray sweatshirt, holding nothing.

"You don't have to say a word," he said. "I'll just be tall."

I laughed, and it surprised me.

The front door key still worked.

I know because I put it in the lock, and it turned, and the door swung open on a hallway full of the smell of Colleen's vanilla candle.

I stepped onto my porch instead and stood there.

Up and down Linden Court, doors were opening.

A woman in a bathrobe watered a flowerpot that did not need it.

Two men with dogs slowed on the sidewalk.

Cody's carpool minivan idled in the driveway next door.

Everyone was pretending not to look.

I did not wait for the rest of the street to finish pretending.

"Good morning," I said, loud enough to carry. "I'm Jo Abernathy. I live at 118. I've been on a work assignment for three weeks, and I'm home now."

A dog barked.

"I haven't separated from my husband," I said. "I just wanted you to hear that from me."

Nobody said anything.

From the doorway behind me, Colleen's voice came out smooth and warm.

"Jo, honey. You're upsetting the neighbors."

She was dressed this time, in a soft green sweater and gold hoops.

She held a mug that said World's Okayest Mom, and she smiled at me kindly.

"We didn't think you were coming back until the weekend," she said. "Carlton said you needed time."

"Carlton said a lot of things."

"The locksmith will be here soon," Colleen said, still cheerful. "It's really just for safety, with Cody home alone. You understand."

A white van pulled up to the curb.

The man who climbed out wore a tool belt and carried a clipboard.

"Morning," he said. "Thorndyke? Re-key, two doors?"

"That's me," Colleen said.

"And you're the homeowner?"

"I'm the resident," Colleen said.

"I'm the homeowner," I said.

I took the folder from my bag and held it open.

"Deed, with my name on it. Mortgage, in my name only. Property tax bill, my name."

The locksmith read the top page.

He read it a second time and looked at his clipboard.

"The work order was placed by a Carlton Maddox," he said.

"Carlton is on the deed since last year," I said. "But the mortgage and the down payment are mine. And I'm standing here saying no."

He looked at Colleen.

She kept smiling.

"I can't re-key a house when one owner on the paper says no," he said. "You'll want to sort that out between you."

He climbed back into the van.

It pulled away, and the street watched it go.

Behind me, a floorboard creaked.

Carlton came down the hall in his dealership polo, hair wet from the shower, and stopped when he saw the open door.

"Jo, don't do this," he said.

"Do what?"

"This. In front of everyone. It's humiliating Cody."

I turned.

At the top of the stairs, Cody stood with one hand on the banister.

He did not look humiliated.

He looked at me, and then he gave me one small nod.

"I'm going to get my things," I told Carlton.

"They're in the basement."

"I know where they are."

I walked past him, up the stairs, to the master bedroom.

Colleen's suitcase lay open on my side of the bed.

Her silk pajamas were folded on my pillow.

I picked up the suitcase, shut it, carried it into the hall and set it down outside Cody's door.

Then I went back for the pajamas, the shoes from my father's rack, and the trench coats on their hangers.

Colleen came up behind me.

"What on earth are you doing?"

"Moving you," I said. "The room with the basketball hoop has a bed. You can share it with your son's posters."

"Carlton!"

Carlton stood in the doorway with his hands out.

"Jo, please. We agreed on a system."

"You agreed," I said. "I came home and found out."

He opened his mouth and found nothing to put in it.

Behind him on the porch, Sam leaned against the railing with his arms folded, looking at the street.

He had not come inside, and he had not left.

I sat on the edge of my bed in my own room and took off my shoes.

I could hear Colleen in the hall, whispering furiously to Carlton, and Carlton answering in short, sorry words.

For the first time in two days, my shoulders came down.

I went down to the basement and carried up the box marked Jo, Clothes, and then the one with my father's flannel shirts.

By the time I had unpacked half a closet, the whispering had stopped.

At ten I went down to the kitchen and made my own coffee in my own machine.

The stairs creaked.

Colleen walked in with her hair done and her smile fixed, and she poured herself a cup without a word to me.

She was wearing a pair of small pearl earrings with a gold wire at the back.

I knew them before she turned her head.

They were my mother's.

She had put them in my hands the morning of my wedding, and I had kept them in a velvet pouch in the bottom drawer of my jewelry box ever since.

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