Chapter 5 - The Desperate Eviction
While Mom spent her afternoon playing the martyr for her church friends, Krista and Pete were facing a cold, brutal reality. At five-thirty, my security camera chimed again.
I checked the monitor, expecting to see Mom returning with another scene. Instead, it was Pete’s battered pickup truck parked across the street, not on my property. Inside the truck cab, I could see my seven-year-old nephew, Liam, eating crackers out of a cardboard box while Krista rocked three-year-old Lily on the curb.
They had truly been evicted. Because they had handed their apartment keys back that morning under Mom’s fraudulent assurances, they were now completely homeless, sitting with their entire lives packed into trash bags in the bed of an old truck.
My heart ached. Krista had made terrible financial decisions over the years, constantly relying on Mom’s empty promises, but those three children didn't deserve to sleep in a vehicle because of Evelyn’s narcissism.
I walked out to the end of my driveway, staying firmly on my side of the road. Pete noticed me first and stepped out of the truck, looking utterly broken.
"We aren't here to cause trouble, Jocelyn," Pete said quickly, holding his hands up defensively. "We're just waiting for my brother to get off his warehouse shift in Concord so we can crash in his basement. We didn't know where else to park for an hour without getting towed."
I looked across the pavement at Krista, whose eyes were swollen and raw. She looked at me with genuine shame, keeping her distance.
"Where is Mom?" I asked.
"At her country club home," Pete spat bitterly. "She told us she had a migraine from the stress and couldn't host us because her guest room was being re-carpeted. She gave us fifty dollars for gas and told us we should've fought harder to force you to let us in."
A bitter laugh escaped my throat. Typical Evelyn. She was willing to burn my life to the ground to look like a benevolent matriarch, but the moment things got uncomfortable, she locked the doors of her four-bedroom luxury house in SouthPark and claimed a headache.
"Pete, Krista, come here," I called across the street. "Just you two. Keep the kids in the truck for a minute."
They walked across the asphalt cautiously, stopping at the boundary of my lawn.
"I cannot let you live here," I said, looking them straight in the eyes. "If I let you stay here, Mom will use it as leverage to destroy my boundaries forever. But I won't let my nieces and nephew sleep in a pickup truck."
I pulled an envelope from my pocket. Inside was twelve hundred dollars in cash—my emergency cushion from my last maternity leave check.
"This is not a loan, and it’s not a gift from Mom," I said, handing it to Pete. "This is for two weeks at the extended-stay suites near University City. It has a kitchenette and two queen beds. Tomorrow morning, you apply for the county emergency housing vouchers. Pete, you keep your shift at the freight dock. Krista, you stop answering Mom’s phone calls."
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Krista stared at the envelope, her knees practically giving out as she began to sob. "Jocelyn... after what we did this morning... why would you help us?"
"Because you're my sister," I said softly. "And unlike Mom, I actually give a damn about what happens to your children."
