Chapter 13 - The Boxes With My Name
I did not open them alone.
That was an old habit I had finally broken.
I called my attorney.
Nora came too.
The storage facility manager documented everything.
There were six boxes.
Copies of financial records.
Old photographs.
Printouts of social media posts.
Northstar documents.
Nothing immediately criminal that investigators hadn’t already seen.
Then we opened the last box.
Inside were dozens of greeting cards.
Mother’s Day.
Birthday.
Christmas.
All blank.
Except one.
It was addressed to Grant.
The handwriting was Paige’s.
She had apparently never sent it.
The card contained a long confession written before the spa incident.
That meant Paige had understood what she was doing while she was still doing it.
She wrote about jealousy.
Not romantic jealousy.
Family jealousy.
She resented the invisible place I occupied in Grant’s life.
Even when I stayed away, I existed.
Northstar began with money from me and Russell.
Grant called me when he was afraid.
His father’s memory connected us.
Paige believed she could never become the most important person in his world unless she reduced me.
So she started with little things.
Changed dinners.
Excluded me from trips.
Reframed comments.
Then came money.
Once she crossed one boundary without consequences, the next became easier.
The confession ended unfinished.
I sat quietly.
Nora asked:
“Do you want this sent to the attorneys?”
“Yes.”
I did not keep a copy.
I had spent enough time inside Paige’s mind.
I wanted my own life back.
We closed the storage unit.
Outside, the New Mexico sky stretched impossibly blue above us.
Nora looked at me.
“What are you going to do now?”
“Lunch.”
She laughed.
“I meant about everything.”
“So did I.”
We went to lunch.
That was victory.
Not revenge.
Not watching somebody else suffer.
Being able to discover another box from the worst year of my life and still be hungry afterward.
I ordered enchiladas.
Then dessert.
May you like
Life continued.
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