Chapter 6 - The Inquisition
The living room of Richard and Sherry’s home had always been a temple dedicated to Brittany.
Framed photographs of her filled the walls—her dance recitals, her high school graduation, her short-lived modeling headshots. Photos of Michael were scarce, relegated to small, outdated frames tucked away on the lower shelves of the bookcase.
When Michael and I walked through the front door at seven o'clock that evening, the room was packed.
It felt like a tribunal.
Sitting on the large leather sectional were Richard, Sherry, Aunt Clara, Uncle Dave, and Brittany, who was huddled in a corner of the couch wrapped in a blanket, holding a mug of tea like a wounded soldier. Her eyes were red, but the moment I walked in, her gaze snapped to mine with pure hatred.
"Thank you for finally showing up," Richard said coldly from his armchair near the fireplace. He didn't offer us a seat. He didn't offer a greeting.
"We have twenty minutes," Michael said flatly, standing in the middle of the room with his hands in his coat pockets. "Say what you have to say."
Aunt Clara cleared her throat, leaning forward. She was the family busybody—the one who managed the family gossip chain. "Michael, Jessica... we called this meeting because this feud is tearing the family apart. Brittany is physically ill from the stress. What Jessica posted on Facebook today is completely uncalled for. Defamation of character is a serious legal crime!"
"It's not defamation if it's true, Clara," I said firmly, locking eyes with her. "Every word I posted was backed up by written documentation."
"You destroyed her business!" Sherry wailed, dabbing her dry eyes with a tissue. "Her dream! Her income! She worked so hard for months to build that company, and you destroyed it in two hours out of spite!"
"She destroyed her own business when she endangered my daughter!" Michael barked, his voice echoing off the framed pictures. "Why does no one in this room care about Lily?! Not one of you—not my father, not my mother, not my aunt—has asked how Lily is doing! Not ONE of you has expressed a single shred of remorse that an eight-year-old girl was made to feel like an outcast at her own damn birthday party!"
Silence fell over the room. Aunt Clara blinked, momentarily caught off guard. Uncle Dave looked down at his shoes, shuffling his feet awkwardly.
"Lily is fine!" Richard snapped dismissively. "She didn't eat the food! Nothing happened! You're using this minor incident as an excuse to attack your sister because Jessica has always resented Brittany’s success!"
I couldn't help it—a cold, disbelieving laugh escaped my lips.
"Brittany’s success?" I asked, looking directly at Richard. "What success, Richard? The boutique that went bankrupt three years ago that Michael had to quietly bail out? Or the beauty line that lost fifteen thousand dollars of your retirement savings? Or this catering company that survives entirely on under-the-table payments and stolen credit references?"
Brittany jumped up from the couch, dropping her blanket. "Shut up! Shut up!" she screamed at me. "You don't know anything about my finances!"
"I know enough," Michael said, pulling a folded stack of papers from his inner jacket pocket. He held them out in the air. "These are the bank statements from the 'family assistance fund' I’ve been paying twelve hundred dollars a month into for five years. I hired a forensic accountant yesterday morning to trace the transfers."
Sherry’s face drained of all color. Richard stiffened in his chair.
"Michael..." Sherry stammered, her voice suddenly high and terrified. "You... you don't need to bring legal accountants into family matters..."
"Over the last five years," Michael read aloud from the document, ignoring his mother completely, "I have transferred seventy-two thousand dollars to Mom and Dad’s account. Within forty-eight hours of every single transfer, ninety percent of that money was wired directly to Brittany’s personal account."
Aunt Clara looked up, her eyebrows raised in shock. "Wait... what? Seventy-two thousand?"
"Michael was paying for Brittany’s luxury apartment in the city," Michael continued, looking straight at Uncle Dave and Aunt Clara. "He was paying for her son's private school fees. He was paying for her leased BMW. Meanwhile, when Paige needed braces two years ago, my parents told me they were 'too broke' to help us with a small loan."
"Michael, stop!" Brittany shrieked, her face turning crimson with humiliation.
"No, Brittany, I won't stop," Michael said, his tone icy and precise. "You called my boss today. You called Arthur at my firm and tried to get me fired. You tried to destroy my career, the career that feeds my children, because I stopped paying for your life."
Uncle Dave looked at Richard, his expression shifting from defensive to appalled. "Richard... is this true? Were you taking Michael’s money and giving it to Brittany?"
"It was family money!" Richard blustered, though his voice lacked conviction now. "Brittany needed help establishing herself! Michael was doing well!"
"Michael was working sixty hours a week!" I interjected loudly. "Michael worked himself to exhaustion while Brittany took vacation photos in Cabo using his money! And when we asked her to cater our daughter’s birthday—and paid her two thousand five hundred dollars of our own hard-earned money—she couldn't even be bothered to order one safe food item for our child!"
Aunt Clara shook her head, leaning away from Sherry on the couch. "Sherry... that's... that's wrong. You told us Michael was willingly paying for Brittany’s startup. You told us he offered!"
"He never offered!" I said. "They guilted him! They manipulated him into thinking he was helping his aging parents, while they were secretly funneling his hard work to their favorite child!"
Brittany looked around the room, realizing the court of family opinion was crumbling beneath her feet. Even her aunt and uncle were looking at her with disgust.
"I hate all of you!" Brittany sobbed dramatically, throwing her hands over her face. "You're all turning on me! Just like always!"
She turned and ran down the hallway, slamming her old bedroom door shut so hard a picture frame fell off the wall and shattered on the floor.
Sherry began to wail, burying her face in her hands. "Look what you've done to our family, Michael! Look what you've broken!"
Michael walked over to his mother. He didn't bend down. He didn't offer a hug. He just looked at her with a profound, quiet sadness.
"I didn't break this family, Mom," Michael said softly. "You and Dad broke it twenty years ago when you decided Brittany was the only child who mattered. I was just the foolish son who took twenty years to notice."
Michael turned to his father.
"Tomorrow morning, our attorney will be sending Brittany a formal cease-and-desist letter regarding the fraudulent use of my credit reference on her LLC applications. If she calls my employer again, or if she comes near my house, we will file a restraining order."
"Michael... please," Richard grunted, his eyes finally showing a flicker of defeat. "Don't do this."
"It's already done, Dad," Michael replied.
May you like
He reached out, took my hand in his, and led me out of the house.
As we walked down the front steps into the cool night air, the heavy weight that had rested on Michael’s shoulders for decades seemed to lift away entirely. He didn't look back. Not once.
