Chapter 3 - The Meltdown Begins
Within twenty minutes of the sign hitting the lawn, my phone started buzzing.
It didn't just ring—it went completely ballistic. Call after call, text after text, pinging continuously with the frantic, erratic energy of a digital hornets' nest.
I ignored the first ten calls while sitting in my office downtown, reviewing inventory sheets for my flagship restaurant. Finally, on the eleventh call, I swiped to answer.
"Ian Patrick!" my mother's voice shrieked through the speaker at a decibel level that threatened to shatter my eardrum. "Have you lost your absolute, goddamn mind?! There is a giant neon-reflective sign on our front lawn! People are driving by and staring! The mailman stopped and asked if we were foreclosing!"
"You're not foreclosing, Mom," I said calmly, not looking up from my inventory spreadsheet. "You're just unemployed, living in a house you don't own, and outrunning your welcome. There's a distinct difference."
"Take it down right now!" she screamed, the sound of glass shattering echoing faintly in the background. "Do you hear me?! Take it down, or so help me God, I will disown you! Your father is having heart palpitations! He's sitting on the couch clutching his chest!"
"If Dad is having a heart attack, call an ambulance instead of screaming at me," I replied evenly. "Tell him to pack light. Thirty days goes by fast."
I hung up the phone and blocked her number.
Not three seconds later, my phone buzzed again. This time, it was a text message containing a blurry photo of the 'For Sale' sign from my sister, Tessa.
Are you actually psycho? Tessa's text read. Mom is crying her eyes out! You're ruining our lives just because your wife is a delicate snowflake who can't take a joke about a chair?!
I typed back a single sentence: Get a job, Tessa. The free ride ended.
I blocked her too.
It felt like a physical weight was lifted off my shoulders. For years, I had carried the financial burden of my entire extended family—paying their property taxes, bailing them out of credit card debt, fixing their roof, and pretending to smile at family dinners while they treated Clare and me like second-class citizens. I had bought into the emotional blackmail of "family loyalty." But loyalty isn't a one-way street where one party takes everything and the other gets a shoe thrown at their pregnant wife.
By noon, my broker Melissa called me with an update.
"Ian, you won't believe this," Melissa laughed, sounding truly amused. "I just drove past the Brookfield property to check on the listing. Someone literally tried to pull the sign out of the ground."
"Who?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"Your sister. She was out there in her pajamas and fuzzy slippers, screaming at the grass while trying to yank the wooden stake out bare-handed. A couple of neighbors were standing across the street eating popcorn and watching the show."
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, letting out a heavy sigh. "Did she manage to break it?"
"Not even close. My assistant anchored that thing four feet into hard clay. She just ended up tripping over her own slippers and falling face-first into the mud." Melissa gasped. "My assistant took pictures. We're keeping them for the police report if she tries vandalism again."
"Good. If she touches that sign again, call the cops immediately. Treat her like any other trespassing vagrant."
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"Consider it done," Melissa said. "By the way, word travels fast in this neighborhood. I've already had three separate real estate agents call me about setting up walk-throughs for tomorrow afternoon."
"Schedule them," I said. "Let's get this house sold to the highest bidder."
