I Died to End Their Lie novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Foreclosure

The bank came for the house on a Monday, in the rain.

A man in a gray raincoat stood on the front steps with a folder under a plastic sleeve.

Two sheriff's deputies stood behind him, and a moving truck idled at the curb.

Neighbors watched from their porches with their arms folded.

Nobody had brought a casserole.

Dad opened the door in his shirtsleeves.

"Mr. Rittenhouse," the man said. "The company defaulted on its credit line."

He opened the folder.

"You signed a personal guarantee. The court has granted the bank this property and everything in it."

"I know."

"You have until noon to take your personal belongings."

"I know," Dad said.

He took the folder and signed where the man pointed.

The pen was still in his hand when Mom came down the stairs with a cardboard box.

She had packed it herself.

I floated behind her into the kitchen.

She went into the little room off the kitchen, the room she had never entered until the night I died.

Her hand went along the shelf.

She took the five library books.

They were overdue.

She took the wooden chair, and then she put it back, because she didn't know what to do with it.

She picked up the pillow from the narrow bed and held it to her face.

"It still smells like him," she said.

It didn't, but I understood why she needed it to.

She wrapped the pillow in a towel and laid it on top of the box.

Outside, a deputy was tagging the piano.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Died to End Their Lie from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.