“But he’s not,” she said.
The lawyer gave her a mulish stare. “Well, he must contribute something. The house . . .”
“Right. His mother left him the house when she died. Bert sold his last piece of art thirteen years ago. For the last ten years, I’ve paid the property taxes and maintenance, because that’s the last time Bert worked for money. Last year Bert took out a mortgage on the house so he could pay cash for a new car, which he said he needed for a new delivery job he was taking. I don’t know what happened to the job, but he borrowed on the car for drinking and gambling money. When he was picked up for drunk driving, they impounded the car and the finance agency repossessed it. I haven’t made any of the mortgage payments and the house is about to be foreclosed. That’s Bert’s contribution to the family welfare.”
“You didn’t make the mortgage payments?” the lawyer had asked, as though she had done something unfamiliar.
She had stared at him, making him shift uncomfortably. “It isn’t my house, as Bert often reminds me. I didn’t borrow on it. Foreclosure is sixty days away.”
“And when they foreclose?”
“Bert won’t have anywhere to live.”
“Neither will you,” he challenged.
“I’m moving in with my father,” she said. “Alone. My father doesn’t like Bert.”
Actually, she planned to rent a small apartment when the time came, but that was no one’s business but hers. As it turned out, nothing she had said made any difference, for the lawyer totally ignored it, as did La Raza judge. Typical. As time passed, more and more of the elected magistrates were women, but they were still too few and far between.
She shut the garage door and went into the house, rubbing her forehead. If Bert followed his usual pattern, he’d spend the afternoon with his drinking buddies, maybe Larry, but just as likely that had been misdirection on his part. The police would show up sooner or later, and he wouldn’t want her to know where he really was. During the afternoon he’d go through stage one, which was boisterous conviviality, and stage two, slightly morose nostalgia, and when they ran out of beer, he’d move on to stage three, which might bring him home to tear the house apart, looking for liquor or money he thought he might have hidden sometime in the past. He was always sure one of his old caches was still there and if he didn’t find one, it was because Benita had stolen his money or thrown out his liquor. That’s usually when he hit her, if she was around. Stage four involved belligerence and violence, and she had this cube-thing to protect. Bert had the car, however, and she had no way to go except, maybe, call a cab, and they were so expensive . . .
An audible click. Like that little relay switch. There was money. There, beneath her hand, was money. Quite a lot of money. She had planned to leave after the foreclosure, because that would focus Bert’s belligerence on the bank rather than on herself. But here under her hand was the opportunity to do it now. So call a cab. Pack a bag. Take Sasquatch to a kennel so Bert couldn’t take out his temper on the dog. The money was right there, and even though she hadn’t earned it yet, she planned to earn it, she could start earning it!
Right away, here came the marching ghosts. Mami and Papa wouldn’t approve. It wasn’t fair to Goose and Marsh. The children might not like the idea . . .
She felt a flash of that same pain she’d felt up in the hills, momentary, fleeting, like a splinter being pulled out, a moment’s pang, but then the ache went away, and so did the ghosts, leaving her mind even clearer than before. How very strange. Almost as though she were . . . emptied out. Like a garbage can, all emptied out and washed with hot water and soap. She’d never been able to banish the ghosts before!
Unbidden, a picture of the aliens came into her mind. They would do her a welcome reversal. A good turn. Yes. They would banish her ghosts. They would go down all her nerves and synapses and exorcise her. They would leave her in clarity. Delicately, as though handling fine crystal, she set the thought aside, knowing it to be true. Obviously, they didn’t want a hag-ridden envoy. They wanted someone with her wits about her!