And then I saw it.
Heavy, cream-colored paper. Expensive stock, the kind government offices and law firms use when they want to project authority and seriousness. The return address wasn’t a friend or a utility company or a veteran’s organization.
It was the Portsmouth Family Court, Commonwealth of Virginia.
A chill that had nothing to do with the wind—there wasn’t any wind, the air was dead still—ran down my spine like ice water. My hands, steady enough to field-dress a gunshot wound under fire, suddenly felt clumsy and cold.
I stripped off my gardening gloves, my fingers feeling oddly disconnected from my brain, and tore the envelope open right there in the driveway, not even bothering to walk inside first.
Case No. 4238B
Carter v. Carter
Petition for Property Division and Transfer of Deed
I blinked. The words swam for a second, black text on white paper that my brain refused to process. I thought maybe I was dehydrated, maybe the heat was getting to me. I read it again, slower this time, forcing each word to make sense.
Plaintiffs: Robert Michael Carter and Margaret Ann Carter
Defendant: Evelyn Marie Carter
My parents. My own parents were suing me.
A laugh bubbled up in my throat, dry and jagged like broken glass scraping concrete. It wasn’t a happy laugh. It wasn’t even a bitter laugh. It was the sound a pressure valve makes when it finally breaks, the noise of something fundamental cracking under load.
