Chapter 8 - The Clean Sweep
The following weekend, a commercial moving van sat parked in the curved driveway of the Oakridge house. I stood on the front lawn with Emma, watching two professional moving crews load my parents' personal effects into cardboard boxes. The winter sun was melting the heavy ice off the eaves, sending long droplets of water pattering down against the stone patio.
Aunt Dana arrived in her luxury SUV around noon, ostensibly to help Eleanor pack her wardrobe. When she saw me standing by the front porch, she rolled down her tinted window and glared.
"I hope you're satisfied, Kate," Dana hissed through clenched teeth. "You tore this entire family apart over an innocent mix-up. Logan and the kids are traumatized by what you've done to their grandparents."
I walked over to her driver's side window and looked her dead in the eye. "Logan made fun of an eleven-year-old girl's dress while she stood shivering in the doorway, Dana. You sat at that table, drank wine, and didn't even have the decency to offer her a ride home. If your children are traumatized, it's because they are watching their parents discover that being cruel has consequences. Don't come near my daughter again."
Dana rolled up her window with a sharp hum and sped down the driveway, spraying slush onto the trimmed hedges.
Inside the empty house, the silence was vast and hollow. Without my mother's elaborate flower arrangements and the loud chatter of shallow social climbers, the five-bedroom colonial looked like what it truly was: just wood, drywall, and glass. In the center of the formal dining room, resting on the middle of the bare hardwood floor where the grand holiday table had stood, sat a small white cardboard box.
Emma walked over and picked it up. Inside lay the handmade Christmas ornament she had brought on Christmas Eve—the one with Eleanor’s name painted in delicate gold leaf. Eleanor had tossed it onto the floor before leaving, not even bothering to take it with her.
"Do you want me to throw it away, Mom?" Emma asked quietly.
I took the small wooden star from her hands. "No, sweetheart. We're going to keep it. We're going to hang it on our tree next December, so we always remember that no matter how cold the world tries to be, we don't ever trade our kindness for someone else's cruelty."
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Emma smiled—a real, bright, unburdened smile that reached all the way to her eyes. "Can we go see Great-Grandma now? She said she wanted to teach me how to play backgammon."
"Yes, baby," I said, putting my arm around her shoulder. "Let's go home."
