Chapter 7 - The Eviction and the Truth
By three o'clock that afternoon, I returned to my parents' house accompanied by two uniform police officers and a legal civil standby officer to collect my personal belongings.
My father had fulfilled his threat: two plastic trash bags containing some of my clothes were sitting on the wet grass near the driveway.
When I stepped out of the police cruiser, Dad stood on the porch, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
"Take your garbage and get off my property," Dad growled. "You are dead to this family, Claire. Don't ever call us. Don't ever come back."
I walked past him onto the porch without showing a single trace of fear. "My personal belongings—my books, my childhood records, my grandmother's jewelry—are still inside my bedroom. The officer is coming in with me to ensure I retrieve them."
Dad's eyes flickered with panic. "You don't have a right to enter this house!"
"Actually, sir," the civil standby officer interjected, stepping up the porch, "she has lived here for over twelve months and pays documented rent. She has full legal right of entry to retrieve her possessions."
We walked inside. The house was in total disarray. Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, staring blankly at a legal retainer agreement provided by a criminal defense lawyer. The legal fee for Brooke's bail and defense was listed at thirty-five thousand dollars—money my parents did not have.
I walked up the stairs to my small bedroom. I pulled my suitcase from the closet and began systematically packing my clothes, my research textbooks, and my personal documents.
As I reached into the back of my closet to pull out a heavy wooden keepsake box that had belonged to my late grandmother, my hand brushed against a hidden metal lockbox hidden beneath the floorboards.
I frowned. I had never seen that lockbox before.
I pulled it out. The lock was simple, and the key was hanging from a small hook inside the closet wall. I unlocked it.
Inside were stacks of letters, financial ledgers, and a certified legal document dated ten years ago.
I opened the legal document.
It was my grandmother's last will and testament.
My eyes scanned the legal clauses, my breath catching in my throat as I read the bold print:
I hereby bequeath the entirety of my real estate property located at 412 Maple Street, along with the sum of $150,000 held in trust, directly to my granddaughter, Claire Miller, to fund her higher education and future scientific research.
My son, George Miller, shall act as temporary trustee until Claire reaches the age of twenty-five.
May you like
I stared at the document.
The house I was standing in—the house my father had claimed to own, the house he had used to lord authority over me, the house where he had charged me eight hundred dollars a month in rent—had belonged to me all along.
