Chapter 14 - The Reconstitution of New Albany
The drive back to New Albany felt different than the chaotic rush of the night before. The sleet had stopped, leaving behind a hard, glittering frost that coated the bare oak branches along the winding country roads. When we pulled into my mother’s driveway, the house looked like a sanctuary—warm light spilling from every window, the smell of simmering chicken broth and baking bread drifting out through the front porch.
My mother met us at the door before we could even knock. She took one look at our faces—exhausted, pale, but undeniably lighter—and pulled us both into a fierce, wordless embrace that smelled of cinnamon and laundry detergent.
“Coffee is on,” she said, her voice thick with emotion as she ushered us into the kitchen. “And before you say a single word about what happened in Westerville, sit down and eat. Wesley went out and bought fresh pastries from that German bakery on Fifth Avenue—the ones you like, Stella.”
I let out a genuine laugh, sinking into one of the wooden chairs around the table. “Not the flaky ones from the bakery Ryan’s mother used?”
“God, no,” my mother snorted, setting a steaming mug of black coffee in front of me and another in front of Lucas. “Wesley has strict instructions never to buy anything associated with Linda Vance’s orbit ever again. We are eating local, unpretentious, non-fraudulent carbohydrates in this house.”
As we sat around the kitchen table, the full weight of the past forty-eight hours began to settle into our bones. My phone buzzed quietly on the laminate counter—a text from Dr. Sterling at Grant Medical Center confirming that Ryan Hayes had been successfully moved out of the ICU and into a private recovery room, her vital signs stable, her color returning to normal.
“She’s going to be okay,” I told Lucas, sliding my phone across the table so he could read the message.
Lucas let out a long, ragged breath, resting his forehead against his hand. “We need to talk to her lawyer. The house… legally, it belongs back in her name. Or whatever restitution the court can manage. I don't want a single dime of anything my mother stole.”
“We’ll make sure of it,” my mother said firmly, refilling our coffee mugs from a ceramic pot. “Your cousin Wesley has a contact in the Franklin County civil division. But right now, you two need to breathe. You need to remember what it feels like to sit at a table where nobody is keeping score.”
May you like
And for the rest of that Saturday, we did just that. We didn't talk about Linda, or property deeds, or the rotting corpse of a suburban empire in Westerville. We talked about Poppy’s upcoming kindergarten registration, about our plans to sell our cramped townhouse in Columbus and look for a place closer to my mother in New Albany, and about how we were going to spend a quiet, peaceful Christmas without a single drop of tension in the air.
***
