Chapter 4 - The Eviction at Elmwood Terrace
By the middle of January, the temperature in the suburbs dropped to single digits.
At seven o'clock on a Thursday evening, I was sitting in my warm living room reviewing regional onboarding documents for Apex Meridian when my buzzer sounded.
I looked at the intercom monitor. Standing in the lobby of my building was Aunt Clara, wrapped in a faded wool coat, clutching a vinyl purse to her chest.
I took an elevator down to the lobby. I didn't buzz her up to my floor; my apartment was my sanctuary, and I had no intention of allowing the toxicity past the front foyer.
"Clara," I said, stepping into the heated vestibule. "What are you doing here?"
My aunt looked startled to see me dressed in tailored slacks and a silk blouse, looking neither impoverished nor ruined. She adjusted her glasses, her voice wavering between manufactured indignation and desperate sweetness.
"Lisa! Good heavens, why haven't you answered your mother’s calls? We’ve been worried sick about you!"
"You weren't worried on Christmas Eve, Clara," I said, leaning against the mailboxes with my arms folded. "You were busy allocating my savings account to your periodontal surgery."
Her face flushed an ugly, mottled red. "That was just family talk! You took a little tease and turned it into a crisis. But that’s not why I’m here. Lisa, your sister is in serious trouble."
"Carol is an adult with a marketing degree."
"Her landlord posted an eviction notice on her front door yesterday!" Clara gasped, taking a step closer, her voice dropping to a dramatic whisper. "The sheriff is going to come next week and set all her furniture out on the snow! She’s twenty-four years old, Lisa! How is she supposed to find another apartment with an eviction filing on her public background check?"
"She can pay her rent," I said plainly.
"She doesn't have the money!" Clara cried. "She works twenty hours a week at that boutique in Oakbrook! It barely covers her groceries and her car payment! Your mother and father can't help her right now—the county sent a notice that their property taxes are delinquent, and the furnace in their basement started knocking two nights ago!"
"And what does any of that have to do with me?"
Clara stared at me as if I had spoken in ancient Greek. "What does it have to do with you? You're her sister! You have savings! You're family!"
"I am unemployed and useless," I quoted, looking Clara straight in the eye. "Those were my mother’s exact words. Everyone at that table nodded. Everyone laughed. You sat there, Clara, with three gifts in your lap, and watched them humiliate me over an empty tree skirt."
"Oh, for heaven’s sake, Lisa, are you going to hold a grudge over a few wrapped boxes for the rest of your life?!"
"It wasn't about the boxes, Clara," I said, my voice dropping into an icy, unshakeable calm. "It was about the contempt. You all sat there and decided that unless I was wiring money into your accounts, I had no worth as a human being. Well, I accepted the verdict. I am useless to you now. And useless people do not write checks."
"She’s your sister!" Clara shrieked, people in the lobby turning to look at us.
"Then take her in," I replied. "You have a two-bedroom condo in Naperville with a spare guest room. Put her on your sofa. Pay her back rent with your bridge money. Step up, Clara. Show us all how real family acts."
Clara’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Her eyes darted away, the sudden panic of personal financial obligation instantly silencing her righteous fury. "I... I can't do that. My condo association has strict rules about long-term guests, and my fixed income—"
May you like
"Exactly," I said, turning toward the elevator door. "Generosity is very easy to preach when someone else is footing the bill. Have a safe drive back, Aunt Clara."
I tapped my key fob against the security panel, stepped into the elevator, and let the heavy glass doors slide shut, leaving my aunt sputtering alone in the cold lobby.
