Chapter 9 - The House on Maple Street
The bright yellow notice was stapled directly to the front door of the Maple Street colonial on Wednesday at noon.
*NOTICE TO VACATE — UNLAWFUL DETAINER.*
*TO: DANIEL MILLER, MELISSA MILLER, AND ALL OCCUPANTS.*
*YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED TO SURRENDER POSSESSION OF THESE PREMISES WITHIN THIRTY (30) DAYS...*
Melissa was the one who found it when she returned from a humiliating trip to the pawn shop, where she had just sold two designer watches to buy groceries.
She ripped the paper off the wood, reading the bold black letters, and let out a shriek that caused the mail carrier across the street to stop and turn.
"Daniel! Daniel, get down here right now!"
Daniel came stumbling out of the garage, his hands covered in engine grease from trying to fix an old generator he hoped to sell for quick cash.
"Look at this!" she screamed, shoving the paper into his chest. "She's evicting us! Your seventy-two-year-old mother is throwing us out of our own house!"
"It's not our house, Melissa!" Daniel finally broke, screaming back at the top of his lungs. The neighbors on both sides were now openly standing on their porches, watching the final collapse of the Miller empire. "It's the trust! Everything belongs to the trust!"
"You told me you owned this place!" Melissa screeched, her face contorting in pure venom. "You told me when we got married that your father left the estate to you! I gave up my career in Philly because you said we were set for life!"
"I thought I could handle it!" Daniel shouted, tears of rage and humiliation spilling over his cheeks. "I was trying to keep us afloat!"
"You're a fraud!" she yelled, throwing her handbag directly at his head. "You're a pathetic, bankrupt failure! My father warned me about you! He told me you were just riding on your parents' coattails, and he was right!"
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From the upstairs window, Ethan watched his parents tearing each other apart on the front lawn.
He didn't cry. He didn't intervene. He turned back into his bedroom, pulled his battered duffel bag from under the bed, and began quietly folding his shirts, his school books, and the wooden carving of an eagle his grandfather Robert had carved for him when he was seven years old.
