She Framed Me As Unfit So I’ll See Her In Court Chapter 45
On moving day, my mother stood in front of the old apartment holding a cardboard box and refusing to let it go.
“I’ll take that.”
“It’s just towels. How heavy can it be?”
She shot me a glare and hugged it tighter.
I laughed and surrendered.
The new place was only two streets away from hers. It wasn’t large, but it had secure entry, a bright kitchen, and a window that caught the afternoon sun.
The damages payment covered the deposit and security expenses. I kept my old job. After work, I enrolled in a legal document drafting course.
When my mother heard, she was delighted at first, then worried.
“You work during the day and study at night. Won’t that be too much?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t pretend otherwise.
“When I’m tired, I’ll rest. It’s okay if I learn a little more slowly.”
In my last life, I had always thought that if I just endured one more day, pushed through one more step, people would believe me.
Now I knew life was not a trial I had to win alone.
If I was overwhelmed, I could ask for help. If I was afraid, I could call the police. Evidence could be handed to a lawyer. And my child could spend a night with her grandmother.
That wasn’t weakness.
It was simply that I had finally learned not to drive myself into a dead end.
Maya ran out of her room holding up the picture we had drawn together.
“Mommy, where should the sun go?”
The sun in the picture was all lopsided, the yellow coloring spilling over the lines.
I pointed to the wall opposite the table.
“Somewhere you can see it the second you look up.”
My mother brought over a chair, Maya handed us tape, and I held the frame steady.
The three of us fussed over it forever, and in the end, it still hung a little crooked.
None of us rehung it.
Sunlight streamed in through the window and landed perfectly on that not-quite-round sun.