Chapter 2 - THE CREAKING FLOORBOARD: CAUGHT IN THE ACT OF UNCOVERING THE TRAP
I didn't panic, nor did I slam my laptop shut.
Years of raising children and running a household taught me that panic is a luxury you cannot afford when someone is trying to pull the rug out from under you. Instead, I slowly lifted my fingers from the keyboard, tilted the screen back just a fraction to obscure the glowing emails from my lawyer, and turned my head toward the shadowed archway leading to the living room.
A silhouette hovered near the pantry.
"Mom?" Kevin’s voice rasped through the dark, thick with exhaustion and lingering annoyance from our earlier argument. He rubbed the back of his neck, padding across the floor in his bare feet. "What are you doing up so late? It's past midnight."
"I could ask you the same thing, Kevin," I replied, my voice steady, carrying an icy calm that seemed to throw him off balance. "Water doesn't usually require a midnight conference."
Kevin walked over to the counter, pulled a glass from the cabinet, and filled it with tap water. He wouldn't look me in the eye. That was his tell ever since he was a little boy; when Kevin knew he was in the wrong, his gaze locked onto anything else—the faucet, the tile, his own knuckles.
"Tiffany is upset," he said finally, taking a slow sip. "She says you're being difficult. Christmas is supposed to be about family, Mom. Why are you making this so hard?"
I closed the blue folder on my lap, the sound of the cardboard scraping against the table sounding like a small thunderclap in the quiet room.
"I'm making it hard, Kevin? Let's talk about hard," I said, turning my chair slightly to face him. "Your wife invites twenty-five strangers—excuse me, her extended family—into my home without a single word of consultation. She demands I cook, clean, and cater to a crowd that treats my house like a hotel. And then, she informs me that this will be your house someday anyway. Care to explain what she meant by that?"
Kevin choked slightly on his water, coughing into his hand before wiping his mouth with a paper towel. His eyes darted toward the blue folder, resting on it for a split second before snapping back to my face.
"She... she was just exaggerating, Mom. You know how Tiffany gets when she gets stressed about housing costs. The apartment market in the city is insane. Our deposit took almost everything we had left, and we're just... well, we're trying to figure out our next steps."
"Next steps," I repeated, tasting the words like sour milk. "And those next steps include selling my house out from under me, or moving in and turning me into a ghost in my own bedroom?"
"No one is selling anything!" Kevin raised his voice, a flash of defensive panic breaking through his fatigue. "You're twisting everything. Tiffany is just trying to build a future for us. Why do you always have to make her out to be the bad guy?"
"Because, Kevin, the bad guy usually wears a smile and carries a clipboard," I said, standing up from the chair. I didn't tower over him, but my posture held a granite resolve that made him step back. "Go back to bed, Kevin. Take your water with you. But understand this: Christmas is going to happen. But it is not going to happen the way you two planned."
He opened his mouth to argue, but the look in my eyes must have warned him that pushing further would open a door he couldn't close. He turned on his heel, his bare feet padding softly back up the stairs.
May you like
As the second-story bedroom door clicked shut, I looked back down at my laptop screen. The email to my estate attorney, David Vance, was still open. I added one final sentence to the draft: They know I'm onto them. Move the appointment to tomorrow morning.
Then I hit send.
Related Stories
