In Sickness and in Lies novel · Chapter 5 of 32

Chapter 5: Locked Out

I didn't argue with the guard.

He was only a man with a flashlight and a mortgage, and he already looked sorry.

I drove back to Elmhurst with one change of clothes in the trunk, which was a gym bag from the week before.

My mother's house was small and dark.

Her neighbor had left a casserole on the step and a note that said, Praying for Myrna.

I let myself in with the key from under the geranium pot.

The kitchen smelled of cold coffee, and her mug was still on the floor where she had dropped it.

I picked up the pieces and mopped the spill.

Then I sat on the kitchen chair with my coat on and didn't cry until the sun came up.

At six I made toast and saw the mail on the counter.

It was stacked under her reading glasses, in the careful pile she'd kept since my father died.

On top was a cream envelope with a bank's name in the corner.

First Lakeshore Trust Company.

It was addressed to Myrna Snyder, in care of the Snyder Family Trust.

I turned it over.

I had never heard of a Snyder Family Trust.

My father had been a machinist who died when I was twenty.

We'd had a mortgage, a car with a bad transmission, and a small settlement from the plant that my mother always said went to the funeral and the debts.

I put the envelope back under her glasses.

I told myself I would ask her when she could speak in whole sentences.

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