Chapter 11 - The Severed Ties
The Cole family home in Oak Valley was quiet when my father helped me through the front door four days later.
The house smelled like stale coffee and dusty upholstery. The framed photos lining the hallway—pictures of Paige’s dance recitals, Paige’s prom, Paige’s high school graduation—felt like artifacts from a stranger’s life.
My mother was sitting at the dark mahogany dining room table, surrounded by legal papers, empty takeout containers, and a bottle of white wine.
When she heard the front door click shut, she looked up, her eyes rimmed in red, her makeup completely gone. She looked old. Defeated.
"Marissa," Elaine said, her voice hoarse. "You have to stop this."
I didn't answer. I walked carefully into the living room, using my left hand to stabilize the heavy medical sling across my chest. My father stayed right beside me, holding my overnight bag.
"The lawyer says she's looking at five to seven years," Elaine wept, clutching a crumpled tissue. "Five to seven years in a state penitentiary! She’s twenty-eight years old! Her boutique is already boarded up because people were throwing paint at the windows! Do you want your sister to spend her twenties behind bars?"
"She tried to kill me, Mom," I said flatly.
"She didn't try to kill you! She just wanted to slow you down!" Elaine screamed, slamming her palms on the table. "She was jealous! Sisters get jealous! When you were little, you used to take her dolls!"
David dropped my bag onto the floor with a heavy thud.
"Elaine," David said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Pack your bags."
Elaine stopped crying, blinking at him in utter confusion. "What?"
"I’m selling this house," David said, pulling an envelope from his coat pocket and tossing it onto the table in front of her. "Those are the divorce papers. My lawyer served them to your attorney an hour ago."
"David! You cannot be serious! We have been married for thirty-five years!"
"And for twenty of those years, you turned our younger daughter into an unfeeling sociopath while you treated Marissa like an unpaid servant," David said, his voice steady, devoid of the hesitation that had defined him for decades. "You covered for Paige when she stole. You covered for her when she cheated on her college exams. And you tried to cover for her when she used a car as a weapon against her own sister."
Elaine looked at the papers, her hands shaking so violently the paper rattled. "Where am I supposed to go?"
"You have your sister’s house in Portland," David said. "Or you can use your half of the boutique’s remaining inventory. But you are leaving this house by tomorrow morning. I am deeding the Chelan lake house to Marissa today. The title transfer is already at the county clerk’s office."
Elaine looked up at me, her face twisting into a desperate, pleading mask. "Marissa... please. Tell him. You know how much this family means to us. We’re blood. Blood forgives."
I looked at the woman who had birthed me, raised me, and systematically sacrificed my well-being on the altar of Paige’s vanity.
"Blood means nothing, Mom," I said, my voice steady and cold. "Blood is just what was leaking out of my shoulder while Paige was laughing."
May you like
I turned my back on her, walked down the hall to my old bedroom, and closed the door behind me.
***
