My Future Doesn't Have Room for You novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: What the House Cost
Janet opened the blue folder and held it up so the whole room could see the receipts.
They were stapled in bundles, each with a sticky note in her handwriting.
"Roof, eighteen thousand dollars," she said. "Furnace. Property taxes, every year for ten years. Groceries. School shoes. Braces."
"I didn't have braces," I said.
"Dental work, then."
"I had two fillings, and Esther drove me."
Janet kept her eyes on her audience.
"I gave up my job at the dental office to raise a grieving child I had no obligation to take. I put my own children second. I want everyone here to know what that cost this family."
A woman by the window nodded slowly.
The pastor's wife looked from Janet to me, and she did not nod.
"And now she walks in with a piece of paper," Janet said, "and tells us to get out of the only home my children have ever had."
"It's a deed," the deacon said, a little helplessly.
"It's a technicality!"
"Then can I ask about the money?" I said.
I said it quietly, because I wanted them to lean in.
"My mother's lawyer paid Janet twenty-nine hundred dollars every month for ten years to look after me. That's what a guardian stipend is."
Janet's head turned.
"On top of that, Social Security paid her sixteen hundred and forty dollars a month, which was my benefit. She put three hundred and eighty on a card and told me it was everything."
The pastor's wife said, "Janet?"
"It's trust language," Janet said. "It's complicated."
"Is it true?"
"There were expenses. The children were growing."
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