Chapter 1 - The Bleach and the Blood
The smell of chlorine was the only thing I could taste.
It had seeped into my skin, into my lungs, and into my very soul.
My name is Gianna Bailey, and at sixty-six years old, I was a prisoner in a house I had built with my own sweat.
I looked down at my hands.
They were no longer the hands of the woman who had managed the books for a Detroit repair shop.
They were raw, red, and weeping from the cracks in the knuckles.
Every time I dipped the rag into the bucket, a sharp, stinging pain shot up my arms.
"Don't miss the grout this time, Mother," Peyton said.
She stood above me, clicking her tongue.
She was wearing a silk robe that cost more than my monthly pension.
A pension that was currently being deposited into an account I couldn't touch.
"Austin likes the kitchen to sparkle for the New Year’s guests," she added.
She didn't offer me a chair.
She didn't offer me a glass of water.
She treated me like a piece of equipment that was beginning to wear out.
I thought back to the day we signed the deed.
Joshua and I had stood in that notary's office, our hearts full of pride.
"It’s a gift, Austin," Joshua had said, clapping our son on the back.
"A foundation for your future."
We wanted him to have the head start we never had.
We wanted him to be a "gentleman."
But we didn't realize that by giving him everything, we were taking away his humanity.
The university, the cars, the wedding, this very house.
It had all been paved with our sacrifices.
Joshua worked fourteen hours a day under the bellies of rusted trucks.
I stayed up until two in the morning balancing ledgers to save every penny.
And here I was, scrubbing sauce off a tile while my son scrolled through a luxury watch catalog.
When the doorbell rang on December 29th, I thought it was a delivery.
Instead, it was the man I had missed every second of the last year.
Joshua stood there, his face weathered, his eyes scanning the scene.
He didn't see a happy grandmother.
He saw a broken servant.
He saw the bucket, the apron, and the wounds on my hands.
The roar that came out of him was a sound I hadn't heard in forty years.
"Gianna, get up," he commanded.
"We are going home. Now."
But Austin didn't flinch.
He didn't show shame.
He showed the cold, calculated arrogance of a man who believed he held all the cards.
"You're trespassing, old man," Austin said.
He stepped forward, using his height to intimidate his father.
"This is my house. My name is on the paper."
"And your wife belongs here until she finishes what she owes us for her room and board."
The door slammed.
The sound echoed through the foyer like a gunshot.
I stood in the darkness of the hallway, listening to Joshua pounding on the wood from the outside.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to run.
But Austin turned to me, his face a mask of iron.
"Back to the kitchen," he hissed.
"If I hear that door open again, I'll make sure you never see your grandson again."
I went back to the floor.
I went back to the bleach.
But outside, in the cold Ohio night, Joshua Bailey was done being a mechanic.
May you like
He was becoming a wrecking ball.
***
