She believed in the cautious way she allowed herself to believe things that she was safe there. The letter was two paragraphs. The first paragraph cited a clause in her lease about maintaining the character and safety of the property and refraining from activities that could attract criminal elements or create liability for the owner. The second paragraph gave her 30 days. Naomi read it standing in the driveway.
She read it again. Then she folded it very precisely along its original crease and went inside and put it on the counter next to the other envelopes. The stack was getting taller. She stood in the kitchen for a long time without moving. Then she called her sister in Ohio.
Dana picked up on the second ring with a cheerful, "Hey, you." That immediately became something else when she heard the silence on Naomi's end. " What happened?" Dana said. " I got fired today." ""
Oh, Naomi." And my landlord is evicting me." A pause. " For what?" " For letting stranded veterans sleep on my floor during a blizzard."
Another pause longer. " I'm coming down there. You're not coming down here. Naomi. Dana.
I'm fine. I just needed to say it out loud to someone. Naomi's voice was steady. She was good at steady. She'd had a lot of practice.
I just needed one person to know. You need more than that. You need a plan. You need I know what I need. Naomi said.
I'll figure it out. She said goodbye and hung up. She looked at her phone. 2% battery. She plugged it in.
She went to check on the kids. Eli was at the kitchen table doing homework. Rosie was on the living room floor with her crayons drawing something complicated that involved, as far as Naomi could tell, a lot of motorcycles. " Mom," Rosie said without looking up. " Did you know that Spider-Man's real name is Kevin?"
Naomi stopped. " How do you know his real name?" " He told me." Rosie added a wheel to one of her Crayon motorcycles before they left this morning. He came and said goodbye.
He said his daughter's name is Emma and she's seven and she likes horses. Naomi crouched down beside her daughter. He came to say goodbye specifically. Rosie added flames to the side of the motorcycle. He said I was brave for asking about his tattoo.
She looked up. Was I brave? Yeah, baby. Naomi said you were. Rosie smiled and went back to her drawing.
Naomi stood up. She looked at the crayon motorcycles filling the page and felt something not sentimentality, not nostalgia, but something more complicated and more urgent gathering at the back of her throat. Then her phone buzzed. Unknown number. She almost didn't answer.
She answered, "M Reyes," a woman's voice clipped and professional. " This is Janet Hollis from the Blackwater County Department of Child and Family Services. We've received a report regarding the welfare of your children. I'd like to schedule a home visit at your earliest convenience. The room went very quiet around Naomi.
A report, she said. Yes, ma'am. Regarding potential exposure to criminal activity and concerns about adequate housing and nutrition. Naomi kept her voice completely flat. It was the only way she knew to manage the thing rising in her chest.
Who filed the report? She said, I'm not able to share that information. When can you come? We prefer within 48 hours when a report has been filed. Fine, Naomi said.
Come whenever you need to, she ended the call. She stood in the kitchen and looked at the stack of envelopes and thought with the clarity that was almost peaceful. Someone is doing this deliberately. Not one thing. Not Linda Marsh gossiping, not customers complaining to Patty, not her landlord's sudden concern for liability.
All of it together within 48 hours of the bikers leaving her driveway. Someone had decided to bury her and she didn't even know who yet. She found out the next morning. She'd been up since 5 cleaning, not because the house was dirty, but because she needed her hands to be doing something specific and controllable while her mind worked through everything else. She scrubbed the kitchen floor.
She organized the cabinets. She made sure Ros's bedroom was immaculate, that the bathroom had clean towels, that there was nothing nothing that a child services investigator could point to as evidence of anything. At 7:15, there was a knock on her door. She opened it expecting a neighbor or possibly Janet Hollis arriving early. It was a man in a suit, mid-50s, silver hair, the particular kind of soft that comes from having things other people want.
He was holding a business card between two fingers like an offering. Ms. Reus. He said, "Harold Pike. I'm on the Blackwater Town Council. I wonder if I could have a few minutes of your time."
She knew his name. Everyone in Blackwater knew Harold Pike's name. He'd been on the council for 12 years, ran the biggest real estate development company in the county, and had a reputation for getting what he wanted with the patient, methodical efficiency of someone who had never had to hurry because time always ran in his direction. She also knew in the way you know things in a small town without ever being told directly that Harold Pike had been trying to buy the land her farmhouse sat on for 2 years. The land backed up to a creek.
The creek bordered a parcel he was developing into something with the words luxury and retreat in its name. Her landlord had mentioned it once off-handedly. The way people mention things they have already decided don't concern you. She looked at Harold Pike on her porch and understood completely and immediately that the events of the past 48 hours had his fingerprints all over them. " Mr. Pike," she said. "
I know who you are." " Then you know I'm someone worth talking to." He smiled. It was a good smile, the kind that had been practiced until it looked natural. " May I come in?" "
No," she said. A flicker behind the smile. " Just a flicker. This doesn't have to be difficult, Miss Reyes. " What doesn't?" "
Your situation." He tucked the business card back into his jacket pocket with the calm of someone who'd done this before. I understand you're facing some challenges right now. Housing instability, employment issues. I'm in a position to help.
How I'm prepared to offer you a very fair relocation package, he said. Enough to get you and your children to settled somewhere more suitable. A fresh start. New town, new school for the kids, the resources to actually make something work. Naomi stared at him.
You did this, she said. All of it. The report to child services, my landlord. I help people understand their interests, he said pleasantly. Patty, a pause.
Small business owners make their own decisions. You want my land, Naomi said. My landlord's land. and you used what happened the other night to manufacture a reason to force us both out. Harold Pike looked at her for a long moment.