Chapter 14 — Freedom

The rest was only consequence, and consequence needs no help from me.

With a felony record and no marketable skill, Craig’s applications went nowhere, and with no allowance to prop it up and no salary that could carry it, the bank foreclosed on the Mesa house inside six months.

He and his mother lost it and moved to a cheap rental far out at the edge of the county, and Craig took whatever work he could find.

Noreen, who had built her whole identity on being the generous matriarch her daughter-in-law’s money made her look like, discovered what she actually was without it, and it was not generous and it was not admired and it was, most of all, not comfortable.

They had each other, and their resentment, and the small hard life their choices had earned them, and no one left who owed them anything.