Mom Moves In
4:30pm Friday June 6
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I'm sitting at my tiny kitchen table finishing the review of my assigned audit files for the week for Clarke, Raymond & Spitzer when my phone rings. "Hi Mom, slow down, I can't understand you, what's wrong? He's gone? What do you mean gone? His home office is cleared out and his clothes and personal items are gone? Did he leave you note? Text or voice message?" My mother is distraught on the other end of the line. My stepfather was gone when she got home from work and took all of his possessions. She said that everything seemed as usual lately, the amount of fighting hadn't changed.
I tell her that I will throw some clothes in a bag and be there within three hours and we will sort everything out. I tried to get her to remain calm and told her I would call when I got to Utica. I just finished my third year of college at the University of Albany in a 3+2 MBA Program. I graduated last month with a bachelor's degree in business and enrolled in two summer classes to start the master's portion of the program. I did an internship in the spring at the accounting firm Clarke, Raymond & Spitzer that does company and college annual audits. They hired me to work remotely reviewing audit files.
I grew up in Cicero, NY, just north of Syracuse where my mother still lives. I'm an only child and my parents divorced when I was nine. My father died of colon cancer when I was 17 and I am currently 22 years old, and my mother is 45. My mother married my stepfather in my senior year of high school. My stepfather and I hardly spoke. He didn't seem interested in getting to know me, so I ignored him.
I quickly gathered a few clothes and start heading west. I drove faster than I normally do on the NYS Thruway with mother's crying still ringing in my head. I called when I saw the Utica exit to update my new ETA. She told me that all of her expensive jewelry was missing too. What the fuck? I arrive at the house to find my mother pacing back and forth trying to jog her memory for something she's forgotten. I took her in my arms and held her for several minutes. I then grabbed a note tablet from my computer bag and went systematically through the house and noted what was missing. We started in my stepfather's home office. The filing cabinets are completely empty, and the computer is gone. The flash drives he kept in his desk drawer are also missing. A few of his expensive tools from the garage were missing along with some jewelry that had value in my mom's bedroom.
Why did he leave so suddenly? Who is he running from? Did he borrow money from the mafia and not pay them back? My mother keeps asking what we should do, and I honestly don't know. I suggest we try to get some rest and review the situation in the morning when we have clearer heads. I lay down on my old bed but can't sleep. I can hear my mother pacing in her room. Finally, she sticks her head in my room and asks if I'm still awake. I invited her to come lie next to me. With one arm tightly around her I gently ran my fingers through her hair with my other hand. At 45 she is still a very stunning woman. She had shoulder length blonde hair, green eyes, small teardrop shaped B-cup breasts with only a tiny amount of sag, her stomach is almost completely flat, and her butt has just a slight curve to give it some shape. We finally both fell asleep.
The next morning, I got up to pee, but the bathroom light switch didn't work. I thought it odd that all three lightbulbs would blow at one time. I tried other light switches and the same. I went to the basement to check the breaker box, and everything looked normal. My mother called the power company and found out that the power was turned off for non-payment. They told her that the last payment was five months ago, and they can no longer accept paper checks for payment. She tried to pay electronically over the phone, but they will only accept a guaranteed bank check now.