Chapter 7 - THE DEPARTURE OF THE PARASITES
Margaret realized with absolute, crushing finality that there was no loophole left to exploit, no sympathetic ear to manipulate, and no son to rescue her from the consequences of her own malice.
With a final, venomous glare directed entirely at my face, she turned on her heel, grabbed the handles of her bulging plastic garbage bags, and began dragging them across the marble floor of the foyer.
Every step sounded heavy, pathetic, and agonizingly slow.
She hauled the bags out through the front doorway, dropping one of them against the porch pillar before stumbling down the front steps toward the paved driveway.
I walked slowly out to the entryway, standing in the open doorway with my arms folded loosely across my chest, watching her struggle to load her miserable belongings into the backseat of a beat-up silver sedan parked near the curb.
Her shiftless brother Robert was sitting in the driver’s seat, chewing on a toothpick and looking entirely unbothered by the fact that his sister had just been legally cast out of a million-dollar estate.
Margaret heaved the last of her black garbage bags into the footwell, slammed the rear door shut with a furious kick of her foot, and climbed heavily into the passenger seat.
The beat-up sedan’s engine sputtered to life with a loud, rattling cough, belching a cloud of grey exhaust into the crisp morning air.
As the car began to pull away from the curb, Margaret rolled down her window halfway, thrusting her head out into the morning breeze to scream one final curse in my direction.
“You’ll rot alone in this big empty house!” she shrieked hysterically as the car accelerated down the suburban street.
“Nobody will ever love a cold, calculating bitch like you!”
I didn’t blink.
I didn’t flinch.
I simply watched the battered sedan turn the corner and disappear from view, swallowed up by the endless grid of the suburban avenue.
The street fell completely silent once more.
The air felt crisp, clean, and entirely purged of their toxic presence.
I turned around, stepped back inside my home, and closed the heavy oak front door, sliding the deadbolt home with a satisfying, mechanical click.
The house was mine.
Every single room, every single hallway, and every single memory of abuse was now locked safely behind a boundary that no Mercer would ever cross again.
May you like
I walked back into the kitchen, picked up my tablet, and tapped the screen to open my architectural project management software.
It was time to get back to work.
