Chapter 10 - The Rainstorm and the Leaking Roof
On Thursday afternoon, the true storm arrived.
The meteorologists had warned the tri-state area for three days: a Nor’easter colliding with an Arctic cold front, bringing sustained forty-mile-per-hour winds and three inches of torrential rain in under twelve hours.
By four o’clock, the sky over our neighborhood was the color of charcoal. The rain slammed against our living room windows in rhythmic, violent sheets, bending the pine trees in the front yard.
Inside our home, it was warm and dry. Greg had built a fire in the hearth. Lily was sitting on the rug with a sketchpad, drawing a picture of our family at the zoo, her laughter chiming above the roar of the wind.
At 5:15 PM, my cell phone buzzed on the coffee table.
It was an unknown number with a local area code. I knew it wasn't Arthur or Lauren—their numbers were blocked.
I swiped the screen and put the phone to my ear. "Hello?"
"Courtney! Courtney, please, oh God, Courtney, help us!"
It was my mother. She was calling from a neighbor's phone or a burner. Her voice was hysterical, barely audible over the roaring sound of rushing water and what sounded like objects crashing onto tile.
"Eleanor?" I said calmly, leaning back against the sofa cushions.
"Courtney! The tarps tore off!" Eleanor screamed, weeping openly into the phone. "The wind took the blue tarps off the master wing half an hour ago! The rain is pouring directly into the upstairs! The ceiling collapsed in the master bathroom! Water is running down the stairs into the living room like a waterfall!"
In the background, I could hear Arthur roaring profanities, the frantic splashing of boots on wet carpet, and the hollow sound of plastic buckets being dropped.
"Arthur’s trying to drag the antique armoire away from the wall!" Eleanor wailed. "The drywall is falling apart in chunks! It’s soaking into the subflooring! Courtney, the whole house is being destroyed! Please, you have to call Steve Miller! He won't answer Arthur’s calls! He told Arthur to lose his number! Tell Steve to bring his crew! Tell him to bring the emergency tarps! We’ll pay whatever he wants!"
"With what money, Eleanor?" I asked, my voice chillingly soft.
The line went dead silent for a second, save for the violent crashing of another piece of drywall falling in the Elm Street house.
"What... what do you mean?" Eleanor whimpered.
"You don't have the thirty-two thousand for the roof," I said, watching the amber flames dance in my fireplace. "You don't have sixty-four thousand to keep Lauren’s Range Rover—which, by the way, the flatbed tow truck picked up from her driveway two hours ago."
"They took her car?!" Eleanor shrieked. "She has Tyler! How is she going to get groceries?!"
"She can take the municipal bus," I replied. "There's a stop two blocks from her townhouse."
"Courtney, how can you be so heartless?!" Eleanor cried, her voice cracking into high-pitched hysteria. "Your father is seventy years old! He’s up on a stepstool trying to hold a plastic sheet against the ceiling while water pours on his head! He’s going to have a heart attack! Do you want your father to die?!"
"Arthur made his choices, Eleanor," I said, looking over at Lily, who was happily coloring a giraffe yellow. "Just like you made yours."
"Courtney, we are your parents!"
"No," I said, and for the first time, my voice carried the sharp, unyielding weight of the truth David Vance had uncovered. "You are the guardians who siphoned two hundred and forty thousand dollars from the testamentary trust left by my biological mother in 1996."
The silence on the other end of the line was instantaneous.
The roaring wind and the falling rain were the only sounds transmitted through the receiver. The frantic splashing in the background stopped.
"You... you know?" Eleanor’s voice was barely a breath, stripped entirely of its theatrical outrage, leaving behind only the naked, trembling terror of an exposed thief.
"I know," I said. "I know you bought Elm Street with my mother’s death benefit. I know you paid for Lauren’s private design school with my inheritance. And I know you spent thirty-one years treating me like a charity case so I would never ask to see the ledger."
"Courtney... baby, listen to me..." Eleanor’s voice broke into genuine, ragged sobs. "We were young. We had debts. We were going to pay it back—"
"The time to pay it back was every single day you chose Lauren over me," I whispered. "The time to pay it back was Sunday afternoon, when my little girl stood by that window in her unicorn dress, waiting for grandparents who couldn't even bother to send a card because they were busy soothing the golden child who tried to crush her spirit."
"Courtney, please..."
"Buy some buckets, Eleanor," I said. "And tell Arthur to be careful on that stepstool. If he breaks a hip, my emergency credit card isn't going to cover the hospital bill."
I tapped the red icon on the screen.
I placed the phone face down on the coffee table.
May you like
Outside, the storm raged against the glass, violent and merciless. But inside our living room, the fire crackled warmly, casting long, peaceful shadows across the floor where my daughter hummed a cheerful little tune, safe from the storm, and finally, completely free from the ghosts of Elm Street.
***
