Chapter 5 - Reclaiming the Mantel
By 4:30 p.m. that afternoon, a moving van was parked on the street outside.
Chloe’s father had arrived from New Jersey with a pickup truck to help her load her clothes, her shoes, and her personal furniture. He didn't say a word to me or Dan. He looked embarrassed, carrying his daughter’s boxes down the porch steps with his head held low, knowing full well what she had tried to do.
Chloe didn't say goodbye. She got into the passenger side of her father's truck, slammed the door, and stared straight ahead as they pulled away down Route 9.
When the dust settled, the house went completely still.
Dan and I stood in the open doorway, watching the red taillights of the truck disappear around the bend.
Dan turned to me, his shoulders slouched, looking like a little boy who had lost his way. "What now, Mom?"
"Now, Dan," I said, taking his arm, "we put my house back together."
We spent the next four hours working side by side.
We moved the heavy oak bed back up the stairs into the master bedroom—the room with the big bay windows that looked over the garden where Robert had planted white hydrangeas thirty years ago. We carried the boxes of old family albums out of the damp garage and brought them back into the warm living room.
Dan took his father’s framed photograph out of its cardboard wrapping. He polished the glass with the sleeve of his shirt, walked over to the fireplace, and set it right back in the center of the mantel, right where it belonged.
He stood there for a long time, staring at his father’s face.
"He would have been ashamed of me, Mom," Dan whispered, his voice cracking.
"No, Dan," I said, coming up beside him and placing my arm around his waist. "Your father would have been proud that you finally woke up. It takes a strong man to admit he was wrong, and an even stronger one to fix it."
Dan wrapped his arm around my shoulders, burying his face in my hair, weeping silently as the afternoon sun cast long, golden rays across the polished hardwood floor.
That evening, I didn't cook a big party meal.
I made two simple ham sandwiches on white bread, poured two glasses of milk, and set them on the dining table—the table with the dents from Dan's toy trucks, the turkey burn mark, and the worn varnish from decades of family life.
Dan sat in his usual chair. I sat in mine.
"Mom," Dan said, taking a bite of his sandwich. "I'm going to file for divorce on Monday. And... I want to pay back every single cent that was taken from Dad's account. I'll take a second job if I have to."
"We'll handle the finances together, Dan," I told him. "Step by step. But first, you're going to help me repaint the hallway closet."
May you like
Dan smiled faintly. "What color?"
"Yellow," I said. "Bright, sunny yellow."
