“Good morning,” I said.
She barely acknowledged me.
Chloe slid her key into the front door.
It refused to turn.
She jiggled it and tried again, using more force.
“Eleanor, the lock is jammed.”
“The lock is perfectly fine.”
She whipped around to face me.
“What exactly did you do?”
“I had it changed.”
Her jaw dropped.
“You can’t lock me out of here. I live here.”
“You stayed here,” I corrected her. “There is a vast difference.”
Her expression morphed from shock to feigned pity.
“You’re getting confused again. Just stay put, I’m calling Mitchell.”
“Call him. His key won’t work either.”
“You’re having an episode, Eleanor.”
“I’m just having a peaceful Sunday.”
She stomped back toward the driveway, pulling out her cell phone to call my son.
That was the moment I noticed the rear door of her SUV was wide open.
A cardboard moving box was sitting squarely in the backseat.
Resting inside it was my mother’s antique silver chest.
It featured two engraved pheasants on the lid and had sat perfectly undisturbed inside my dining room hutch for nearly fifty years. My mother had gifted it to me on my wedding day.
Tucked just underneath the chest was a thick manila folder.
Written across the front of it, in black marker thick enough for my failing eyes to read, was a single word:
SALE.
I navigated down the porch steps as swiftly as my bad hip would allow and yanked the folder out of the box.
Chloe spun around.
“Do not touch my things.”
I flipped it open.
I couldn’t read the tiny text, but the images were crystal clear: professional staging photographs of every room in my house, a local real estate brokerage logo, my exact address, and a printed inventory checklist that included a picture of my silver chest.
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