Chapter 13 - The House After Them
I entered Pinecrest house alone for first time on April 2.
It echoed.
No furniture.
No décor.
No wine glasses.
No Brenda.
No Brian.
The upstairs room that had once been mine was painted navy.
A standing desk where bed used to be.
The photograph of Marie gone.
Found in garage box.
I carried it upstairs.
Set it on floor.
Then sat beside it.
“I’m sorry.”
Talking to dead wife is either grief or age.
I didn’t care.
“I should’ve left sooner.”
Marie’s photograph did not answer.
Good.
If she had, I might have needed doctor.
I walked outside.
The shed remained.
Folding cot.
Small heater.
Blanket.
One of my cracked bottles of odor-control soap.
I picked it up.
Read label.
Industrial-strength body wash marketed for hunters, mechanics, farm workers.
Brenda had ordered a case.
I laughed.
Then threw bottle in trash.
Not the shed.
I called property manager.
“Demolish it?”
He said:
“Structure is useful.”
“Not as bedroom.”
“No.”
“Turn back to tools.”
“Easy.”
We did.
No symbolic bonfire.
Just mower.
Rakes.
Fertilizer.
Where they belonged.
I did not move back into house.
Too large.
Too many rooms.
Mortgage manageable, but why?
Naomi asked:
“Sell?”
“Yes.”
“Wait until ownership case resolved?”
“Can we sell with lis pendens?”
Brian had filed notice due lawsuit. Title cloud.
We needed resolve.
That became leverage.
May you like
He wanted settlement.
I wanted clean title.
