ADVERTISEMENT
Violet stepped closer. “Face it, Nora. You’re thirty-two, single, and invisible. Mom’s the only reason you aren’t completely alone.”
Her mother slammed the bowl into the sink hard enough to rattle the counters.
“Pack your things. Leave the keys. Leave anything Violet needs.”
Nora rose slowly from the table. Soup still dripped from her chin.
“Okay,” she said softly.
The answer startled both women.
Her mother blinked. “Okay?”
Nora pressed a napkin gently against her burned cheek and walked calmly upstairs.
Behind her, Violet laughed.
“That’s it? No crying?”
At the staircase, Nora paused and looked back once.
“No,” she answered quietly. “No tears.”
Then she shut her bedroom door and made three phone calls.
One to a doctor.
One to her attorney.
And one to the security company whose cameras had captured everything.
She packed lightly.
No handbags.
No jewelry case.
No electronics Violet had spent months eyeing greedily.
Just clothes.
Her passport.
Medical paperwork.
And her father’s necklace.
Everything else stayed behind exactly where it was.
Downstairs, Violet celebrated loudly.
“She finally learned her place.”
Her mother scoffed. “She’ll come crawling back before morning.”
Nora stood silently in the hallway listening while fresh bandages cooled the burns across her face.
The urgent care doctor had carefully photographed every injury.
Thermal injury caused by hot liquid.
The report already sat in her lawyer’s inbox.
When Nora finally walked downstairs, her mother barely looked up.
“Keys,” she demanded.
Nora placed a single key gently onto the kitchen table.
Violet frowned. “That’s not the car key.”
“It’s the guest room key.”
Her mother narrowed her eyes. “Don’t get clever with me.”
Nora smiled faintly.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Then she walked out.
Outside, she sat in her car staring at the house through the windshield.
ADVERTISEMENT
