Chapter 13 - The Desperate MotherBy Friday evening, with only eight days remaining on the settlement clock, Eleanor Vance did something she had never done in my thirty-three years of life.
She showed up at my apartment building.
I came down to the lobby after the front desk concierge called to inform me that a woman was refusing to leave the visitor seating area. When I stepped out of the elevator, I barely recognized her.
The meticulously polished woman who always wore pressed linens and held her head high looked diminished. Her hair was drawn back loosely, her eyes were shadowed with dark circles, and her posture was slouched in the leather armchair.
When she saw me, she stood up quickly, clutching her handbag to her chest.
"Naomi," she said, her voice lacking its usual commanding timbre. "We need to talk. Privately."
"We can talk right here, Mom," I said, keeping my distance and standing near the main entrance glass doors. "My apartment is off-limits."
"Please," she whispered, looking around nervously as if the concierge might hear her. "You're humiliating us. The whole neighborhood is talking. Process servers arriving every other day... Derek's personal problems being exposed... Your father hasn't spoken more than three words to me in a week."
"You brought process servers into this when you illegally attempted to throw my life into the street after I saved your house," I replied, my voice calm, flat, and entirely unbothered.
"I panicked!" she cried softly, taking a step forward, her hands shaking. "Derek was in trouble! He had nowhere else to go! I thought... I thought you were strong enough to handle it! You’ve always been the independent one, Naomi! You didn't need that house!"
I stared at her, feeling a cold mixture of pity and profound detachment.
"I didn't need the house, Mom," I said slowly. "I needed a mother who saw me as a human being instead of a resource to exploit until her favorite child needed a bed."
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She flinched as if I had struck her. "Naomi, please... stop the court sale. We don't have thirty-eight thousand dollars in cash. If the court forces us to sell the house, where are your father and I supposed to live?"
"That," I said, opening the door for her to leave, "is something you and Derek should have thought about before you called me a parasite."
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