Chapter 7 - The Breaking Point
The foreclosure notice was taped to the front door on a rainy Thursday morning.
Marcus peeled the neon-green sticker off the wood, staring at it until the letters blurred. He walked into the kitchen, where Vanessa was frantically packing her designer bags.
"I called my mother," Vanessa said without looking at him. "She said we can stay in her guest house in Scottsdale until we get back on our feet. But Marcus, you have to sell that pathetic sedan of yours. We can't pull up to her neighborhood in a ten-year-old Toyota."
Marcus looked at his wife. He looked at the boxes of shoes that cost more than his father's monthly pension. He looked at the empty spaces where his father used to quietly fix their appliances and cook their meals.
"I'm not going to Scottsdale," Marcus said.
Vanessa stopped packing. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm done, Vanessa," Marcus said, his voice eerily calm. "I am done pretending. I am done chasing a lifestyle we can't afford, and I am done being married to someone who treated the only person who ever truly supported us like garbage."
"You're leaving me?" she scoffed, though panic flashed in her eyes. "Over your stubborn old man?"
May you like
"No," Marcus corrected her. "I'm leaving you because I finally realize why he left. You’re toxic, Vanessa. And I was too weak to stop you. But I'm stopping it now."
Marcus grabbed his duffel bag—the same kind his father had used weeks prior—and walked out the front door, leaving Vanessa alone in the hollow shell of the house she had prized above all else.
