Step into Chapter Two to discover how the rest of the story unfolds.

-4-

In the sleepy, leafy neighborhood of Oak Creek, Illinois, the summer cicadas buzzed with a deafening, rhythmic monotony. But inside the two-story colonial at 442 Elm Street, the only sound was the high-pitched, hysterical whining of a grown man whose virtual reality headset had just gone dark.

“Mom! Mom, get in here!”

Brent slammed his fists down on his faux-leather gaming chair, his face flushed a mottled, angry crimson. He spun around, his bare feet slapping against the worn linoleum of the den, and marched into the kitchen where Helen Vance was desperately trying to scrub a stubborn grease stain off a frying pan with a dry sponge.

“Brent, honey, I’m trying to call the bank again, but the automated system just keeps hanging up on me—”

“The Wi-Fi is dead!” Brent yelled, throwing his hands up in the air as if explaining a tragedy of global proportions to an incompetent child. “My raid was in twenty minutes! My guild needed me! What did you do to the router?”

“I didn't do anything to the router!” Helen snapped back, her voice cracking with the frayed, brittle panic of a woman whose fragile denial was finally cracking under the weight of reality. She dropped the sponge, her hands trembling as she wiped them on her floral apron. “It’s Naomi. Something is wrong with Naomi’s account. The mortgage... Brent, the mortgage company called twice this morning. They said if we don't cure the default by Friday, they’re initiating pre-foreclosure proceedings.”

Brent’s mouth dropped open, the anger instantly morphing into a look of profound, indignant shock.

“Foreclosure? Are you kidding me? Call her!”

“I’ve called her forty times!” Helen shrieked, her own temper finally fraying. “Her phone goes straight to voicemail! She’s not answering her texts, she’s not responding to emails, and when I drove by her old apartment building in Chicago this morning to see if she was sick, the doorman told me she broke her lease a month ago and moved out of state!”

The kitchen went dead silent, save for the persistent, heavy hum of the refrigerator that no longer had a utility company guaranteeing its electricity past tomorrow afternoon.

Brent stared at his mother, his narrow eyes wide with a sudden, creeping horror.

“Moved out of state?” he whispered, the words tasting like ash. “Where? With who? She doesn't have a boyfriend. She doesn't have a life outside of work and this house.”

“I don't know,” Helen whimpered, her knees suddenly buckling as she grabbed the edge of the laminate counter for support. She looked around the kitchen—at the outdated cabinets my father had painted yellow in 1998, at the copper pots that gleamed under the overhead lights, at the very walls that had sheltered us through every storm. “She just... she vanished. And she took the money with her.”

Brent’s face twisted back into that ugly, petulant snarl that always appeared whenever things didn't go his way. He jabbed a thick finger toward the hallway.

“Well, find her!” he demanded, his voice rising shrilly. “Call her office! Call that boss of hers—what’s his name, Marcus? Tell her she’s being ridiculous. Tell her she needs to pay the mortgage right now or we’re going to be out on the street!”

Helen didn't move. She couldn't. For the first time in her seventy-two years, the terrifying realization of her own absolute, helpless dependency crashed down upon her like a collapsing ceiling. She had spent a decade teaching Brent that he was a prince who deserved to be waited on, and she had spent just as long treating me like a draft horse designed to pull their carriage through the mud.