Chapter 6
The harsh fluorescent light hummed overhead, casting a sterile glow over the kitchen table where Leo and Maya sat in tense silence. The revelation about the foreclosure had detonated whatever fragile peace they had established earlier that evening. Leo rubbed his temples, feeling a throbbing migraine building behind his eyes. In his mind, he retraced the timeline of the past year, kicking himself for being so blind, so trusting of the distance that separated him from the ugly reality of domestic decay.
“Thirty days,” Leo muttered, his voice barely audible above the hum of the refrigerator. “That gives us exactly four weeks to find a miracle, or a very cheap moving truck.”
“There are no miracles, Leo,” Maya said, lifting her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but the hysterical panic had vanished, replaced by a cold, hardened realism. “Banks don't care about military service medals or sentimental attachments to wallpaper. They care about numbers on a spreadsheet, and our numbers are thoroughly dead.”
“We sell things,” Leo suggested, though even as the words left his mouth, he knew how hollow they sounded. “The car. The lawn equipment. Whatever jewelry Grandma Clara has left in her cedar chest.”
“Already sold the car six months ago to pay for Mom’s emergency room visit when she wandered onto the highway,” Maya replied, her tone devoid of emotion. “Grandma’s jewelry turned into three weeks of grocery money and electricity bills last winter. There is nothing left to liquidate, Leo. We are down to bare bones and bad memories.”
Leo pushed his chair back and stood up, pacing the narrow confines of the kitchen. His military boots clicked sharply against the linoleum. He refused to accept defeat. In the Army, surrender was never an option until every tactical advantage had been exhausted. There had to be a loophole, a legal technicality, or a hidden asset they had overlooked.
“What about Uncle Arthur?” Leo stopped pacing and turned to face his sister. “Where is he now? If he committed fraud by getting a dementia patient to sign a reverse mortgage, that’s elder abuse and financial exploitation. We can drag him into court.”
Maya let out a short, bitter laugh. “Arthur boarded a one-way flight to Costa Rica the day after the ink dried. His phone number has been disconnected, his social media accounts are deleted, and local police told me jurisdiction makes it impossible to extradite him for civil fraud without a five-thousand-dollar retainer for a private attorney. Do you have five thousand dollars lying around in your rucksack?”
May you like
Leo fell silent. He patted the pocket of his jeans instinctively, finding only a few crumpled dollar bills and a pack of expired gum. He had saved a portion of his deployment pay, but most of it had been wired directly into the joint household account—the very account that Arthur’s fraudulent mortgage had been bleeding dry for months.
From the living room, a soft rustling sound interrupted their grim calculus. Eleanor groaned in her sleep, tossing restlessly against the armrest of the couch. Maya instantly stood up, her maternal instinct overriding her exhaustion, and hurried into the next room to check on their mother. Leo followed closely behind, stepping carefully around the splintered wood where the white mug had shattered hours earlier.
