Chapter 6 - Ashley’s Last Move
Ashley did not wait thirty days.
She waited three.
On Wednesday morning, while Linda was at cardiac rehab and I was at the lumberyard, Ashley walked into the main house using the spare key Ethan had never returned. She went straight to the file cabinet in my office.
She did not know I had installed a small camera there after the gate incident.
By lunch, my phone was full of motion alerts.
I watched her on the screen from the break room, standing in my office with one hand on her hip, flipping through folders marked insurance, taxes, medical, estate.
She photographed documents.
She opened drawers.
She cursed when she could not find the safe code.
Then Ethan appeared in the doorway of the video.
Even through the tiny screen, I saw his face.
He looked sick.
“Ashley,” he said, “what are you doing?”
She spun around. “Getting proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That your parents are hiding assets. That they’re incompetent. That your mother is manipulating your father. Something. Anything.”
“Ashley, stop.”
“No, you stop.” She shoved a folder against his chest. “Do you understand what happens if we leave? We have nowhere to go.”
“We have thirty days.”
“We have debt, Ethan. We have credit cards you don’t even know about.”
He froze.
I leaned closer to the phone.
“What credit cards?” Ethan asked.
Ashley laughed, frantic and cruel. “The cards that paid for your business website. Your truck repairs. Maisie’s preschool deposit. My real estate dues. The life you thought we were managing.”
Ethan’s voice dropped. “How much?”
She did not answer.
“How much, Ashley?”
“Enough that we need this house.”
There it was.
Not concern.
Not planning.
Need.
She had seen our home as a ladder out of the hole she had helped dig.
Ethan backed away from her like the room had caught fire.
Ashley lowered her voice. “Listen to me. If your mom looks unstable, if your dad looks controlling, if we can get someone to believe they need help, then you can petition—”
“No.”
Her eyes sharpened. “Don’t get weak now.”
“She’s my mother.”
“She’s a woman standing between your family and security.”
Ethan stared at her.
I left work without clocking out.
By the time I got home, Ashley was in the driveway, dragging two suitcases toward her SUV. Ethan stood near the porch, pale and shaking. Linda had returned from rehab and was sitting in my truck, where I had told her to stay until I checked the house.
Ashley saw me and lifted her chin.
“Your son and I are leaving,” she said. “You won.”
I walked past her.
“No. Not yet.”
She scoffed. “Excuse me?”
I held up my phone.
Her face changed when she saw the paused video.
Ethan whispered, “Dad.”
Ashley’s composure cracked.
“You recorded me?”
“In my office,” I said. “In my house.”
She looked at Ethan. “Say something.”
He looked at her like he no longer recognized the person he had been defending.
“How much debt?” he asked again.
Ashley’s eyes filled with angry tears.
“You’re really choosing them?”
Ethan turned toward Linda, sitting quietly in the truck.
For once, he did not look entitled.
He looked ashamed.
“I should have chosen them sooner,” he said.
Ashley slapped him across the face so fast Linda gasped from inside the truck.
Then Ashley pointed at all of us.
“You people think you’re better than me. Fine. Keep your ugly old house.”
She got into the SUV and peeled down the driveway with one suitcase still open in the back, clothes spilling onto the gravel.
Ethan bent to pick up a small purple sweater.
Maisie’s sweater.
He held it in both hands and started crying.
Not loudly.
May you like
Not for attention.
Like something inside him had finally run out of excuses.
