Chapter 6 - The Uninvited Guest
It was late November when the knock came on my apartment door again.
This time, it wasn't a tired old man driving twelve hours in a windbreaker.
I was chopping vegetables for dinner when the heavy, rhythmic pounding echoed through the hallway. I paused, knife in hand, listening.
"Erin! I know you're in there!"
Chloe’s voice. Shrill, desperate, and unmistakably furious, muffled by the solid wood of the door.
I walked slowly to the door, peering through the peephole.
Chloe stood in the hallway wearing a stained winter coat, her hair pulled back into a messy, unbrushed ponytail. Her eyes were wild, darting back and forth down the empty apartment corridor. She looked like a woman who had completely unspooled at the seams.
I didn't open the door. I kept the deadbolt thrown and flipped the brass security latch.
"Chloe, go away," I said through the wood. "If you don't leave right now, I’m calling the police."
"Open this door, you ungrateful little bitch!" she screamed, slamming her fist against the wood. "Because of you, we lost the house! Mom and Dad had to pack everything into a U-Haul yesterday and move into a two-bedroom apartment across town! Dad’s blood pressure spiked so high he spent twenty-four hours in St. Luke’s hospital!"
My stomach gave a sickening lurch. Not because I felt guilty, but because of the sheer, breathtaking audacity of her blame-shifting.
"I didn't lose their house, Chloe," I said, my voice cold and steady through the door. "They lost their house because they defaulted on a mortgage they couldn't afford while spending my housing subsidies on your credit cards and your car."
"You ruined our lives!" she sobbed, her voice cracking into a ragged, hysterical wail. "You had all that extra money! You didn't need it! You're sitting out here in Oregon playing computer engineer while our family falls apart!"
"Then build it back up yourself," I replied. "You're thirty-four years old, Chloe. Get a second job. Cut your expenses. Do what every other adult on earth does when they can't afford their lifestyle."
Footsteps echoed heavily down the carpeted hallway.
"Ma'am? Is there a problem here?"
It was Gary, the building superintendent, a burly man in a maintenance jumpsuit, walking up with a stern look on his face.
Chloe spun around, her eyes wide. "She’s keeping me locked out! She’s my sister and she’s holding my family hostage!"
Gary looked at Chloe, then at my door. He had known me for two years as the quiet, polite tenant in 304 who always paid her rent on time and never caused trouble.
"Ma'am, I’m going to ask you to step away from this door right now, or I’m calling the Salem PD to have you removed for trespassing," Gary said, his voice dropping into a no-nonsense register.
Chloe let out a choked, furious gasp. She pointed a trembling finger at my door. "This isn't over, Erin! You hear me? You can't just throw us away like trash!"
Her footsteps retreated down the hallway, followed by the heavy slam of the stairwell door.
I waited three minutes, leaning my forehead against the cool wooden frame of the door, listening to the silence return. Then I slid the deadbolt open, pulled the door inward an inch, and looked out at the empty corridor.
May you like
My hands weren't shaking.
For the first time, I realized the terror of losing my family was entirely gone. What replaced it was a clean, sharp realization: I hadn't lost a family. I had escaped a hostage situation.
