Chapter 10 - Confrontation at the Family Table
I flipped open the manila folder. Inside were the enlarged, printed copies of the letters, the bank receipts, and the deed to the property in Vermont.
“Nine years ago,” I said, looking around the room at the stunned faces of our neighbors, “our mother sent this letter to our house for my sixteenth birthday. In it, she begged me to know that our family’s collapse was not my fault. She sent dozens of letters to Lily and me. She sent birthday cards, graduation cards, and over one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in cashiers' checks to pay for our college education.”
Murmurs of shock rippled through the guests. Mrs. Gable gasped, covering her mouth.
“That’s a lie!” Richard barked, slamming his fist onto the table, rattling the silverware and crystal glasses. “She abandoned you! She never sent a dime! If she sent letters, they never arrived at this house!”
“Then why did your signature appear on every single certified postal return receipt, Dad?” Lily asked, holding up a blown-up copy of the postal delivery records. “Look at the handwriting, Pastor Henderson. Is that your signature, Richard?”
Pastor Henderson leaned forward, adjusting his spectacles. His face paled as he recognized the distinct, jagged signature of the man sitting next to him.
“Richard…” the pastor murmured, looking up with genuine disbelief. “Is this real?”
“It’s a forgery!” Richard snarled, standing up so violently that his dining chair tipped backward and crashed onto the floor. His face was flushed crimson, veins bulging along his neck. “Eleanor is a manipulative snake! She fabricated those documents to turn my own daughters against me! After everything I sacrificed for you, Chloe! After every dollar I spent keeping a roof over your ungrateful head!”
“You didn't spend your money on us, Dad,” I said, my voice cold as ice. I slid the next set of papers across the table toward the guests. “You spent Mom’s child support money and the money you stole from my paychecks on a luxury lake house in Grand Isle, Vermont, co-owned with Brenda Hayes. And you hid two hundred and forty thousand dollars of gold and assets in Storage Unit 408 on Route 9 while telling the state you were insolvent!”
The room erupted into chaos. Neighbors began whispering furiously, grabbing the printed bank statements and property deeds, passing them around the table.
“This is an outrage!” Richard roared, his facade completely shattering. He lunged across the table toward me, his hands reaching for the documents. “Give me those! You have no right to snoop through my private affairs! You owe me your life, you little bitch! If it weren't for me, you would have been living on the street!”
Before he could lay a hand on the papers, the front door of the house swung open with a resounding thud.
May you like
The room went dead silent.
Framed in the doorway, wearing an elegant dark coat, stood Eleanor Miller.
