The taxi driver was hesitant to leave me there. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror, his eyes darting between my frail figure, huddled in a hospital-issue sweater, and the chaotic scene on the front lawn of the Victorian house at 440 Oak Street.
“Ma’am,” he said, turning around. “Are you sure this is the right address? It looks like… well, it looks like trash day.”
“It is the right address,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. My throat was still raw from the intubation tube that had kept me alive for two months. “Help me out, please.”
I leaned heavily on the cane the physical therapist had given me. The rain was falling in a steady, miserable drizzle, turning the November afternoon grey and cold.
As I stepped onto the sidewalk, the full horror of the scene hit me.
It wasn’t trash.
That was my sewing machine, overturned in a puddle of mud. That was the oak rocking chair my husband, Henry, had built with his own hands forty years ago, now splintered and soaking wet. And there, scattered like confetti across the dead grass, were pages from my photo albums—memories of birthdays, anniversaries, and graduations, dissolving into pulp under the rain.
They hadn’t just thrown my things out. They had evicted my history.
I walked up the driveway, my legs trembling not just from muscle atrophy, but from a rage so cold it burned. I reached the front porch. The door opened before I could knock.
Karen stood there. My daughter-in-law. She was wearing my silk robe—the one Henry had bought me in Paris. In her hand was a steaming mug of coffee that smelled of cinnamon, a scent that used to mean comfort, but now smelled like theft.
She looked at me, and for a second, her face went slack with genuine shock.
“Eleanor?” she gasped. “You’re… awake?”
“Disappointed?” I rasped.
Karen recovered quickly. Her shock hardened into annoyance, the kind one reserves for a stray dog that keeps returning to the porch.
“We called the hospital,” she lied smoothly. “They said you were unresponsive. Mark and I thought… well, we had to move on. Life goes on, Eleanor.”
“Move on?” I pointed a shaking finger at the yard. “You threw my life onto the lawn.”
“We’re renovating,” Karen said, leaning against the doorframe, blocking my entry. “My parents are moving in next week. They need the first-floor bedroom. Their knees, you know? We needed to clear out the clutter.”
“Clutter?” I whispered. “That is my home. That is my bedroom.”
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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