Chapter 17 - The Mother's Solitude
The one-bedroom apartment on the east side was small, clean, and terrifyingly silent.
Linda Vance sat by the single window overlooking the bus depot, holding a lukewarm mug of instant tea.
The tea was generic brand. The milk was powdered. The radiator in the corner clanked and hissed every twenty minutes, a rhythmic reminder that she no longer lived in the quiet, tree-lined cul-de-sac of Maple Street.
Her purse contained twelve dollars and forty cents. Her monthly government assistance card covered basic food staples, but there was no money for the salon, no money for boutique shopping, and no money for the high-end church luncheons where she had once held court.
Her phone rang. It was an unfamiliar local number.
She answered with trembling fingers. “Hello? Nora?”
“Linda?”
It wasn't Nora. It was Richard.
His voice sounded cracked and breathless, coming through a cheap payphone receiver.
“Richard?” Linda sat up straighter. “Where are you? Did you talk to the lawyers? Can we get Tyler out?”
“Tyler won't speak to me,” Richard said after a long, heavy pause. “He told me to rot.”
Linda’s heart plummeted into her stomach. “What about the lawsuit? The civil suit against Nora?”
Richard let out a dry, rattling cough that sounded like rust scraping against stone.
“There is no lawsuit, Linda. No lawyer will take the case. The restraining order is permanent. If I go near her building, I serve three years in state prison. I’m living in a boarding house near the railyard. I start working night security at the scrap depot tomorrow.”
Linda felt tears burn her eyes—not the theatrical tears she used to manipulate her children, but the bitter, freezing tears of total destitution.
“What about me, Richard? Nora only paid three months on this apartment! What happens next month when the rent is due?”
“You’ll have to get a job, Linda,” Richard said, his voice completely devoid of warmth or hope. “Because nobody is coming to save us.”
The line went dead with a hollow click.
Linda slowly lowered the phone to her lap. She looked around the tiny, bare kitchen with its laminate countertops and buzzing fluorescent light.
For thirty years, she had relied on her daughter’s quiet endurance to absorb every blow, fix every mistake, and pay every bill. She had convinced herself that Nora was nothing more than an obligation-bound servant who would never dare to break the family mirror.
Now, the mirror was gone.
May you like
And all Linda had left was the cold, unyielding reflection of her own choices.
***
