Chapter 2 - The Two Minutes
"You don't get to just walk back in here and act shocked," Deborah went on, setting the mug down hard enough that coffee sloshed over the rim onto my grandmother's photograph. "My son finally did something smart. He bought me this place, fair and square, and you are not welcome here anymore."
"You need to leave," I said. My voice came out flatter than I expected. "Right now."
She actually laughed at that — a short, ugly bark of a laugh. "Leave? Sweetheart, you're the one who needs to leave. I'll call the police myself and tell them you broke into my apartment."
"This isn't your apartment."
"It is now."
"It's not," I said, "and you know it's not, or you wouldn't be standing there yelling instead of showing me paperwork."
That landed. I watched something flicker across her face — not doubt, exactly, but the first crack in the performance.
She covered it fast. "You think you're so much better than us. You always have. Running off to Denver for weeks at a time, leaving my son alone, leaving him to fend for himself while you play nurse for your sister. What did you expect was going to happen?"
"I expected to come home to my own apartment," I said.
"This isn't your apartment anymore. You lost the right to it the second you walked out that door for six weeks and left him with nothing."
"I went to help my sister after surgery."
"You went and left a husband to rot," she snapped. "And now you want to waltz back in like nothing happened? Like you didn't abandon this family? You are trash, Vivian. You always have been. My son deserves so much better than someone who runs the second things get hard."
I didn't flinch. I'd heard versions of this speech from Deborah for six years. I'd just never heard it delivered inside my own living room, over my own grandmother's mug, with my own photographs missing from the shelf.
"Two minutes," I said quietly. "Pick up your purse. Leave on your own, or I call building security and they escort you out. Your choice."
She laughed right in my face — loud, delighted, like I'd told a joke instead of given her a warning.
"You're not calling anybody," she said. "This is Marcus's home. You have no authority here at all."
I didn't answer her. I opened the side pocket of my purse, pulled out my phone, and pressed one button.
"Building security," I said, my voice completely level, "this is Vivian Hale in Unit 12B. There's an unauthorized person in my apartment right now, and she's threatening me. Please send someone up immediately — and bring the building manager with you."
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Deborah's face went white, then red, then white again. "You called security on me? On your own family?"
"You're not my family," I said. "You're a woman standing in my living room, drinking coffee out of my grandmother's mug, telling me I'm trash in my own home. Security is on their way. You have about ninety seconds left to decide how this goes."
