They watched from the dry porch.
None of them saw me retrieve the tiny brass key caught inside the suitcase lining.
My grandfather had given it to me when I turned eighteen.
“Your father understands numbers,” he’d said. “I understand relatives. Keep this somewhere they won’t look.”
I had laughed then.
At the motel, I washed the grit from my hands and called the number engraved on the key’s tag.
A woman answered on the second ring.
“Marianne Vale.”
“It’s Nora. They threw me out.”
Silence.
Then I heard a chair scrape.
“Are you safe?”
“For tonight.”
“Did you sign anything?”
“No.”
“Good. Come to my office at nine.”
I stared at my reflection in the dark television.
“Marianne,” I whispered, “do I actually own the house?”
“You have since your grandfather died.”
Rain hammered the motel windows.
For the first time that day, my body stopped shaking.
