Linear Shift, Part 1

Chapter 1

Present day

The sign on the door read "NOTICE OF EVICTION"—it was unmistakable. Peter was at a loss for words, despite having known it was coming. He stood there, staring at the notice as if waiting for the words to mysteriously change before his eyes. They did not. Peter pulled the attached document from his entry door and read it thoroughly.

Disgusted, he folded the notice in half and unlocked the door before going inside, just like he had done thousands of times before. This is my house, dammit! You'd think unemployed folks could get a break! These thoughts flooded his mind as he mindlessly dropped his keys on the table in the foyer and walked into his study, ignoring the pile of mail on the floor.

The lights were out and the wooden shutters were closed tight. It was dark, just the way Peter liked it in his study. He crossed the room, clicked on his Tiffany-styled desk lamp and fell into his tufted leather chair. He was still holding the eviction notice and he read it once more for clarity. He was going to lose the house. He felt like he was losing everything. First his wife, two years ago, then his job a year ago, and now the house. Pretty shitty three-year run. It wasn't even the house itself that Peter felt so attached to, so much as the fact that it was the first purchase he'd made with Minnie after getting married. He believed they would grow old and die in this house. Peter closed his eyes, and wondered where it had all gone wrong. He thought he was a good husband. Hell, he was a good husband, but that didn't matter to the drunk driver that stole his wife. He thought he was a good employee. He was, but that didn't matter when the economy hit the skids and he was laid off. He knew he was responsible with his finances, but without a job, and without a secondary income, his savings could only go so far.

He leaned forward, scanned the papers strewn across his desk, and placed the eviction notice in the appropriate pile: delinquent. The unfortunate thing about the piles on his desk was that they were all delinquent bills, and the house payment being ninety days behind trumped them all. He was screwed, and he knew it.

Leaning back with his eyes closed, he thought back to the first time he'd walked into the 1940's-era French Eclectic, hand-in-hand with Minnie. It had been such an exciting time for them. Having married earlier that year, and then finding out that she was expecting their first child, they both realized that starting a family in a small, two-bedroom brownstone wasn't ideal. They made the decision to move out of the city and into the suburbs. Their broker found an old provincial in desperate need of repair. With a fixer-upper, there was a deal to be had, and Peter was right for the job. He had recently completed his first internship with a well-known architecture firm and was applying for his registration. His strong knack for design and construction made the remodel a perfect fit. He and Minnie had walked from room to room, imagining the potential each possessed. Every nook and cranny of the house seemed to have a story of its own, and they talked about all the future memories they could create.

The house was old and had a lot of character. The floorboards squeaked. The doors stuck. Several light switches did nothing that they knew of. It was perfect. They closed on the house some forty days later, and immediately started remodel work. Floor by floor, room by room, they stripped paint and sanded floors. Their plan was to get the baby's room done first, and then work from the far side of the house inward, so the noise would be far enough from Tori's room that they could work during nap times. Within eighteen months, they had finished the remodel. And with timing bordering on perfection, Minnie was then pregnant with their second child.

Peter forced the memories from his mind. He knew that dwelling on the past would make moving so much harder. Where did he go wrong? What karma had caused him to have such bad luck? He'd asked himself those questions every day since Minnie was killed by that drunken bastard. If she could have been just a few minutes early or late, she would still be there with him, and everything would be all right. But she wasn't. She was always on time, and time was not kind to Minnie.

Peter straightened himself in his chair and glanced at the clock. It was 2:45 on a Wednesday. He wiped the tears from his eyes and walked out of his study. He didn't want the kids to see him like that and they would be coming home from school shortly.