Part 1The Key to Betrayal: Selling the House My Mother Left Me

The key slid into the lock, but the door opened from the inside.

I froze.

This apartment was supposed to be empty.

Arthur told me the tenant moved out last month and he hadn't found a new one yet.

The door swung open.

Standing there was a woman in a silk slip dress, her hair wet, looking like she had just stepped out of the shower.

When she saw me, she froze too.

Then, she called out a name.

Not "Who are you looking for?"

It was—

"Arthur?"

She thought the person at the door was my husband.

This apartment was left to me by my mom.

The year my mom passed away, the eminent domain buyout was just approved. She never got to live here for a single day.

* * *

The woman stood in the doorway, her hand still resting on the doorknob.

Behind her was the living room.

The lights were on.

The TV was on.

A plate of sliced fruit sat on the coffee table.

A pair of men's slippers rested next to the shoe cabinet.

They were Arthur's.

I recognized those slippers. I bought them at Target last year—a two-pack. One pair for the house, and he said he'd keep the other pair at the warehouse to change into.

Turns out they weren't at the warehouse.

They were here.

"Who are you?" She finally reacted, her voice a bit shrill. "Why do you have a key?"

I didn't answer.

I looked down at the slippers on her feet—pink, fluffy, the soles clean.

Those weren't the slippers of someone who just moved in.

Those were the slippers of someone who had lived here for a long time.

On the living room wall, there was a framed photo. A picture of two people.

Arthur and her.

He had his arm around her shoulders, smiling broadly.

I stared at that photo for three seconds.

Arthur rarely smiled.

When he was with me, he always had a deadpan face. No matter what I said, his responses were always "mm," "oh," or "got it."

In the photo, he was smiling like a twenty-year-old kid.

"Who exactly are you?" Her voice grew louder.

"I am the landlord of this apartment."

After saying that, I turned and walked away.

The stairwell was very quiet.

I held onto the railing as I walked down.

First floor.

Second floor.

Third floor.

When I reached the lobby on the ground floor, I stopped.

I pulled out my phone and checked the time.

7:43 PM.

I came today because the HOA called, saying there was a leak in this unit and asking the owner to come take a look.

Arthur said he couldn't make it, told me not to worry about it, and said he'd hire someone to fix it.

I told him I happened to be in the area.

He was silent on the other end of the line for two seconds.

Those two seconds—thinking back on them now—were entirely fueled by guilt.

I stood in the ground-floor lobby. It was already dark outside.

My phone lit up. It was Arthur.

"Are you home yet? The warehouse is slammed today; I'll be back late tonight."

I shoved my phone back into my pocket.

In these fifteen years, how many times had he said "the warehouse is slammed"?

I didn't go home. I sat in my car parked downstairs for two hours.

I didn't cry.

I just sat there.

On the sixth floor of the building outside my window, the lights were still on.

That was my mom's apartment.

My mom lived her whole life in an old alleyway, in a tiny four-hundred-square-foot place that leaked rain in the summer and drafted cold air in the winter. The year the demolition notice came down, she was so happy she couldn't sleep. She told me, "Chloe, Mom is finally going to live in a nice house."

She never got the chance.

Three months before the relocation apartments were ready, she passed away.

The name on the deed was mine.

She signed it and pressed her fingerprint on it while she was on her deathbed.

That day, she held my hand and said, "This house is for you. It's Mom giving you a safety net."

Now, inside this "safety net," lived a young woman in a slip dress.