He’d forwarded his flight itinerary to our shared email account — an account he’d apparently forgotten I still had access to. It told me exactly when they were leaving, exactly when they were coming back, and exactly how many days I had.
Gloria filed an emergency motion for temporary exclusive use of the property, citing abandonment and documented harassment. The judge reviewed Ethan’s texts. Ethan, who had signed his contempt with his own name and sent it at 2:13 in the morning, had made the legal argument for me.
Then I made the call I’d been thinking about for three days.
The home mover’s name was Roy. He ran a small operation — just him and a crew of four — and he specialized in lifting structures off their foundations and relocating them. He showed up on a Wednesday morning in a truck that looked like it had seen everything twice, walked the perimeter of the house with his hands in his pockets, knocked on walls, checked the crawl space, measured the roofline.
“Foundation’s concrete block,” he said, crouching down with a flashlight. “That’s actually easier. You want the lot completely cleared?”