PART 5
Marcus flinched as the plastic shattered. He looked down at the pieces, then up at me, tears finally brimming in his eyes.
“Mom… please. Don’t do this. It’s Christmas.”
“It was Christmas,” I corrected him. “Today is just the day after. The day you start paying for what you’ve spent.”
I pulled my gloves tight over my hands and took a step back toward the driveway, turning my coat collar up against the wind.
“You have thirty days to satisfy the lease default, Marcus. If the funds aren’t wired to the trust account by January twenty-eighth, the legal proceedings for repossession will begin. You can keep the BMW, of course. You’ll need somewhere to sleep.”
“Dorothy, wait!” Ashley cried out, running down the porch steps toward me, her fake sweetness completely replaced by desperate panic. “Please! We’re family! We made a mistake, okay? Marcus was just trying to be nice to my mom! We’ll give the car back! We’ll return it today!”
I stopped at the edge of the driveway and looked back at her. Ashley looked frail in the morning light, her blonde hair tangled, her eyes bloodshot, clutching her thin robe against the biting wind. Behind her, Linda was already retreating into the house, clutching her leather purse tightly against her chest, protecting her secret wealth to the very end.
“Family,” I repeated the word slowly, testing its weight. “Family doesn’t reduce a mother to a punchline to make a mother-in-law feel like royalty. Family doesn’t measure love by the horse-power in the driveway and contempt by a three-dollar joke.”
I opened my car door, the smooth hum of my ten-year-old sedan unlocking with a comforting click.
“Mom,” Marcus called out, his voice cracking as he took a step into the cold driveway in his bare feet. “What do you want from us?”
I sat down in the driver’s seat and looked up at him through the open window.
“I don’t want anything, Marcus,” I said softly. “I’m old, remember? What would I do with a gift?”
I closed the door, blocking out his response.
I backed out of the driveway smoothly, my tires crunching over the light frost on the street. In my rearview mirror, I watched the three of them standing in the twilight of the cul-de-sac. Ashley was screaming at Linda on the porch. Linda was retreating behind the heavy front door. And Marcus was standing barefoot in the driveway, staring down at the broken pieces of a plastic pink pig scattering across the cold pavement beneath his brand-new car.
I turned the heater up, adjusted my mirrors, and drove home to drink my coffee in peace.
