Chapter 1 - The Page With Karen’s Address
Karen Whitmore waited until my father carried the last moving box down the driveway before she decided to humiliate him.
“Some people just can’t afford neighborhoods like this anymore.”
My father, Robert, was seventy-two.
He had lived in that house for twenty-eight years.
He did not answer her.
He simply carried the box toward the truck while my mother, Ellen, stood beside the lawn with both hands folded in front of her.
Mom looked tired.
Not defeated.
There was a difference.
Karen seemed unable to recognize it.
At fifty-something, she had been president of the Briarwood Hills Homeowners Association for six years and had somehow turned a volunteer position into a small monarchy.
Blonde hair.
Light blazer.
Pearls.
A smile that always looked most natural when someone else was uncomfortable.
She turned toward Dad.
“You should’ve taken our offer.”
Dad put the box inside the truck.
I closed the rear door.
Then I looked at Karen.
“You’re sure everything’s finalized?”
She laughed.
“I signed everything myself.”
That answer was exactly what I wanted.
I gave her a faint smile.
“Everything?”
“Every page.”
Behind her, two members of the HOA landscaping committee stood near the sidewalk pretending not to listen.
Karen glanced toward my parents’ empty house.
The moving truck started.
She smiled proudly.
“Finally.”
I waited until the truck rolled toward the street.
Then I said, “You might want to remember what you signed eleven days ago.”
Her smile disappeared.
“What are you talking about?”
Dad and Mom exchanged a quiet look.
Neither said anything.
That was part of the agreement.
Karen stepped closer.
“What did I sign?”
“There was one page with a different address.”
She frowned.
Then something shifted in her face.
“Whose address?”
“Yours.”
Color drained from her cheeks.
She turned instinctively toward the large brick house across the cul-de-sac.
Her house.
“What did I sign?”
I smiled.
“Maybe you should’ve read every page before celebrating.”
That was where Karen thought the story began.
May you like
It didn’t.
It began ten months earlier, when my parents received a three-hundred-dollar fine because my father’s trash bin remained visible for twenty-seven minutes after the HOA deadline.
