Page 5 of House of Lies

I don’t remember putting it into this box. Then again, I don’t remember packing any of these boxes. I was in tears, a little drunk, still in disbelief that my mother was gone.

Pulling open the magnetic lock on the side, I flip idly through the pages. The contacts section has a few addresses and phone numbers, all in my mother’s neat, round handwriting.

The entries have all faded with age.

I only recognize a handful of names—my grandparents, two of my mom’s friends, the guy who used to do repairs at our house. A lot of the ones I don’t recognize have no context. Just names and contact numbers. Some of them only have an initial and last name.

My mom came from money. Some of these names sound like they could be high society—Hawthorne, Remington, Astor.

There’s a handful of business cards in here, a coupon for a dry cleaner that expired five years ago, and lots of empty cardboard dividers with scratched-out labels

More junk.

I keep all my notes and contacts on my phone, just like Mom did. I doubt she’s even touched this thing in the last five years.

Is that why she left it behind?

I shove away the insidious thought. It’s been playing on repeat in my head since the day Detective Lewis announced that my mother’s missing person case was no longer an active investigation.

Missing person, because they claimed there was no evidence of foul play. They claimed she ran away.

Mom would never do that to me.

She fucking loved me.

I take a few sips of tea before moving on.

By the time I’m on the last box, I can barely keep my eyes open. I’ve sorted everything into three trash boxes and a box of keepsakes, and the unopened box that I left for last because I know what’s inside and I’m dreading it.

Purses. An entire box of purses.

Mom loved them. Well, she loved a lot of fancy things. Fur coats, designer shoes and purses, expensive jewelry. She’d buy them, then have to sell them a few months later to pay the bills when the Monroe family curse struck again.

She always refused to sell her purses, though. Even when the pantry was bare and our bills had big red OVERDUE stamps all over them.

I indulged her because they made her happy.

And making her happy made me happy.

I puff out a breath, stirring a few strands of greasy hair. I’m in half a mind to just close this box up again, but there might be a Gucci or two in here that I could pawn for a few bucks.

There’s a musty smell when I open the box, but I soldier through and start taking out one purse after the other. I was right—I find a Fendi, a Balenciaga, and a Prada inside.

I’m halfway through when my fingers brush against something odd. I pluck it out, staring fuzzily at it for a moment before realizing what it is.

It’s her old purse organizer. She bought it a few years ago, so she didn’t have to spend ten minutes transferring everything from one purse to another. She liked it so much she bought another three. This smaller one was for her fancier purses, because the first one she bought was too big for those small, sparkly little bags.

She hasn’t used one of those in years, though. The Monroe curse had struck again eight months ago when the insurance company where Rebecca’d landed a job as a receptionist retrenched her.

The purse organizer feels empty, and assuming it is, I toss it toward the trash box. It misses, of course, because I’m tired as hell and have zero hand-eye coordination on a good day. I watch a cracked lipstick cover, two pennies, and a piece of paper fall out on the floor.

I don’t even have the energy to curse.

I don’t even bother to turn off the lights.

Crawling on all fours, I drag myself onto the couch. It groans under my weight, but I ignore it, already drifting off to sleep.

My back is still aching from my night spent on the couch. Murphy’s Law, it’s one of the few times I haven’t tossed and turned, or gotten up five times to pee. I’d be mad, but it’s a relief knowing I’ve finally gotten a solid few hours of sleep.

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