I read it twice. “You’re going to regret this.” No question about what happened. No “Are you okay?” Just a threat. He didn’t even want my side of the story. He always chose his mother. Before, it was small things—what we ate for Thanksgiving, where we went on vacation. Now, it was my safety.
If he had just come home to yell, that would be one thing. Но “you’re going to regret this” sounded like a promise of something worse. Or at least a massive scene designed to bully me into giving up the cabin as “compensation.”
I checked the time. Mark worked across town. On a Friday afternoon, traffic was a nightmare. I had at least ninety minutes. I put my phone down and went to the kitchen. In the junk drawer, I found the spare set of keys I’d taken back from Mark a month ago after he “lost” his. I later found out he’d given them to his mother “just in case.” I had pretended to believe his lie back then.
I went back to the hallway. I didn’t cry. Archivists don’t cry over torn documents; they find the right adhesive. I dialed a number. Not the police, and not a friend to vent to. I called Uncle Mike.
Mike was an old friend of my father’s, a retired locksmith who knew everything there was to know about security. He lived in the building next door.
“Uncle Mike, it’s Sarah. Remember when you said my deadbolt was a ‘relic’ that a teenager with a paperclip could open?”
“Sarah, kiddo!” the old man’s voice was gruff but warm. “Yeah, I told you. I wanted to install a high-security Medeco for you. But your husband said it was a waste of money.”
“Uncle Mike, do you have one in stock? Right now?”
“I’ve got everything but a social life, Sarah. What’s going on?”
“I need the locks changed and a heavy-duty security bar installed. Now. I’ll pay triple the emergency rate.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Have some coffee ready—black.”
I hung up. I went to the bedroom and opened the closet. Mark’s clothes took up two shelves and half the rack. I looked at them. The wrinkled shirts, the jeans, the suit he wore once a year. Everything smelled like his cologne—that sharp, cheap scent his mother bought him every Christmas.
I didn’t have time for sentiment. I went to the pantry and grabbed a roll of heavy-duty contractor bags. 42-gallon, puncture-resistant. I started tossing his things in, not bothering to fold them. Hangers and all. Socks, underwear, belts. I worked fast and methodical, like a cleanup crew. In the bathroom, I swept his toiletries into a bag. I even grabbed Eleanor’s “overnight kit” she kept there. Into the bag it went.
The buzzer rang—Uncle Mike. While the old locksmith grumbled about the “cheap hardware” the previous owners had used, I finished the sweep.
“You finally kicking that deadbeat to the curb?”
