Chapter 6 - The Crawl Back to the Rental
By 5:30 in the afternoon, the sky over East Atlanta was turning the bruised, violet shade of a summer storm.
A battered yellow taxi pulled up to the curb outside the small bungalow on Moreland Avenue, its muffler rattling against the tailpipe.
Monica stepped out onto the cracked asphalt. She had spent the last twelve dollars in her checking account to pay the fare from Buckhead, leaving her with exactly two dollars and twelve cents in loose change at the bottom of her purse.
Her stockings were torn at both knees; the heels of her designer shoes were scuffed and caked with street grit. Her blonde hair hung in greasy, tangled strands around her pale, haggard face.
"Daniel is inside," she whispered to herself, her teeth clicking together as a cold breeze swept down the street. "He was just angry at the restaurant. He had to make a point in front of his lawyers. But Daniel has always been soft. He took care of me when I had the flu. He bought me soup when I was sad. He won't leave his wife on the street."
She pushed open the rusted chain-link gate, running up the brick walkway toward the front porch.
She grabbed the brass door handle and pulled.
LOCKED.
Monica pulled her key from her purse, jamming it into the deadbolt cylinder.
The key wouldn't turn.
She knelt down, squinting through her tears at the lock mechanism.
The old brass deadbolt had been replaced with a high-security, electronic biometric keypad bearing a small illuminated blue LED indicator: SYSTEM SECURED // PROPERTY OF VANGUARD SOVEREIGN RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS.
"No... no, no, no!" Monica screamed, pounding her fists against the heavy oak wood until her knuckles bruised against the grain. "Daniel! Open the door! It’s Monica! I came home! Open the damn door!"
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The echo died into the quiet neighborhood.
A window scraped open on the house next door.
Mrs. Higgins, an eighty-two-year-old widow who had lived on Moreland Avenue for forty years and had baked pies for Daniel every Christmas, leaned out onto her porch, holding a broom.
"You can stop that racket right now, Monica," Mrs. Higgins called out, her voice sharp and carrying clearly across the driveway.
Monica spun around, her face wild, her chest heaving. "Mrs. Higgins! Where is Daniel? Tell him to unlock the door! My key isn't working!"
"Daniel isn't here, child," Mrs. Higgins said, resting her hands on the broom handle with cold, unyielding disapproval. "Two moving vans from the sovereign trust arrived at two o'clock. They packed up his father’s books, his mother’s quilt, his clothes, and every dish in that kitchen. They swept the floors, turned off the gas, and handed the deed to the city housing land trust."
Monica’s knees buckled. She staggered backward against the porch railing, her breath catching in her throat. "The... the deed?"
"Daniel bought the property from the landlord at noon for cash," Mrs. Higgins revealed. "And then he donated the house to the Atlanta Children’s Shelter in memory of his father, Samuel. The shelter directors are arriving tomorrow morning to turn the building into a nursery for homeless mothers."
"What about my things?" Monica shrieked, clutching her head. "My clothes! My jewelry! My vanity!"
"Daniel left two boxes on the curb by the mailbox," Mrs. Higgins said, pointing with her broom toward the street. "The garbage collection truck hauled them away forty minutes ago."
Monica staggered down the brick steps, falling onto her hands and knees in the overgrown grass near the mailbox.
There, half-buried in the mud near the curb, was a single, waterlogged photograph from four years ago: Daniel smiling in his charcoal suit on their anniversary, his arm wrapped warmly around her waist beneath the Savannah oaks.
The glass frame was shattered.
May you like
The rain began to fall in heavy, warm drops, washing the ink across the paper, blurring Daniel’s smile into gray water.
Monica collapsed into the ditch, clutching the muddy photograph to her chest, letting out a dry, broken wail that was swallowed by the roaring thunder over Atlanta, realizing that she had traded fifty-six billion dollars and an honest man’s soul for an empty ride in another man's car.
