Chapter 6 - The Unraveling
"Dad, Mom told me she was going to wait with them!" Jenna cried out, reaching up from the ground to clutch at the hem of his coat. "She told me she was just using the gas station as a drop-off point! I didn't think she would actually drive away! You know how Mom is when she gets stressed! She exaggerates!"
"Shut up," Dad said.
It was the first time in thirty-four years I had ever heard Richard speak that way to his golden daughter.
Jenna recoiled as if she had been slapped across the face. Her mouth dropped open, her tears freezing on her cheeks. "Dad...?"
"You sat in my kitchen last night," Dad said, his voice trembling with a terrifying, subterranean rage. "You sat there eating the cookies your mother baked, watching the football game, while your sister was working in the dispatch center... knowing her babies were out on the highway."
"Mom told me Clara had already picked them up!" Jenna wailed. "She swore Clara was with them!"
"She threatened to accuse Jamie of stealing from her purse," Dad said, ignoring Jenna entirely. He was staring at the front steps, his eyes wide and vacant as decades of carefully constructed family mythology shattered into dust before him. "She threatened my grandson. A boy who mowed our lawn all summer without asking for a nickel. A boy who sat with me in the hospital room when I had my bypass surgery and read the newspaper to me when my eyes were too blurry to see."
A tear slipped from Dad’s eye, cutting a track through the gray stubble on his cheek.
"And you," Dad said, looking back down at Jenna. "You came here this morning not to check on those children. Not to see if your niece had frostbite. Not to apologize." He pointed a trembling, weathered finger at her face. "You came here because your clothes shop got locked up. You came here for your Lincoln."
"Dad, I’m going to lose my house!" Jenna screamed, abandoning all pretense of remorse. The venom came spilling out now, ugly and raw. "If Clara doesn't fix this, the bank will take everything! Leo and Mason won't have a roof over their heads! Why does Clara always get to hold the power?! Why does she get to destroy my life because of one mistake?!"
"Because I paid for it, Jenna," I said coldly.
Jenna glared at me, her eyes burning with pure malice. "You owe this family! You got the stable county job! You got the pension! I’m an artist! I built a business from nothing!"
"You built nothing," I snapped, stepping down one stair. "You took Dad’s retirement savings—sixty thousand dollars of his liquid equity—and poured it into imported linen dresses that nobody bought. And when that ran out, you begged Mom to guilt-trip me into signing the master lease. I have carried your vanity project on my credit score for two years, Jenna. I have paid eight hundred dollars a month out of my own pocket to keep you from defaulting on that SUV so you could pretend to be a wealthy divorcee at your private school carline."
Dad’s head snapped toward me. "What did you say?"
"Ask her, Dad," I said, gesturing toward Jenna. "Ask her who pays the lease on the Navigator. Ask her whose name is on the commercial lease for Suite 104."
Dad grabbed Jenna by the shoulder of her expensive cashmere coat and hoisted her up to her feet with a strength I didn't know he still possessed. "Is that true? Did Clara sign for that store? You told me you got an SBA loan on your own merit!"
Jenna looked away, refusing to meet his eyes, her lips pressed into a thin, ugly line.
"Answer me!" Dad roared.
"The bank wouldn't approve me because of Greg’s debt!" Jenna shrieked. "Mom told me Clara would do it! Mom said Clara had plenty of room on her credit report and that it was the least she could do after Mom watched her kids during the academy!"
"Mom watched my kids twice a month," I said, "and charged me fifty dollars a day for the privilege while watching your boys for free forty hours a week."
Dad let go of Jenna’s coat as if the fabric had suddenly caught fire. He stumbled back off the porch, landing heavily in the snow beside the walkway. He put his hands on his knees, breathing in deep, ragged gasps.
"My God," Dad whispered. "My whole life... what have I been doing?"
Just then, the sound of another engine approached.
A sleek, pearl-white Lexus SUV turned the corner of my quiet street, tires crunching aggressively through the unplowed snow. It pulled up directly behind Jenna’s Lincoln, blocking the driveway.
The driver’s door opened.
Out stepped Evelyn.
She was wearing her tailored wool trench coat, leather gloves, and her hair was styled in its customary, immaculate silver bob. She looked as though she were stepping out for a festive holiday brunch at the country club.
She took one look at Dad standing in the snow, saw Jenna shivering on my porch, and her eyes flashed with imperious, regal fury.
May you like
"Richard!" Evelyn called out, marching up the driveway with brisk, confident strides. "What on earth are you doing standing in the cold? And Clara—" She turned her icy, aristocratic glare toward me. "You will cease this childish tantrum this instant. The entire neighborhood can hear Jenna crying. Have you no decency? It is Christmas Day!"
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