Paying three hundred thousand dollars of debt before being ordered out of the house
I had won the house back, but the silence inside the walls was absolute.
I sat down at the kitchen counter, placing the deed flat on the dark granite.
My fingers traced the signatures on the bottom of the page. Evelyn Webb. Marcus Webb. The notary’s blue stamp was still slightly sticky to the touch.
I opened my briefcase and pulled out the divorce petition that my attorney had prepared. It was five pages long, printed on heavy white bond paper.
I uncapped my pen and aligned the document with the edge of the counter.
My hand did not hesitate as I signed my name at the bottom of the final page, Clare Mitchell, the ink dark and permanent in the quiet of my restored home.
The moving truck was already backed up to the curb by eight o’clock the next morning.
Two men in blue canvas shirts lifted the mahogany dining table, their heavy boots leaving faint grey dust tracks on the polished pine floors of the hallway.
“Watch the corner of the sideboard,” the taller mover said, his voice echoing in the high ceiling of the dining room.
