Chapter 11 - The Midnight Begging In The Rain And The Shattered Ego Of A Narcissist
By 10:00 PM, a ferocious autumn nor’easter was howling across Massachusetts, rattling the windows of the Newton colonial and sending heavy sheets of rain crashing against the roof.
Inside the house, the atmosphere was warm, peaceful, and fragrant with the scent of freshly baked cinnamon bread.
Clara was upstairs, tucked safely beneath her floral quilt, fast asleep with her stuffed bunny. I was sitting in the living room by the roaring stone fireplace, wrapped in a soft cashmere sweater, reviewing the preliminary quarterly restructuring plan for The Sterling Corporation with Thomas Croft via a secure video link on my laptop.
Suddenly, the violent thud of fists pounding against the front door echoed through the foyer.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
“Mabel! Mabel, please! Open the door!”
I closed the laptop lid. I didn't flinch. I had anticipated this exact moment.
I walked to the front hallway, flicked on the exterior porch floodlights, and looked through the reinforced security glass beside the door.
Flynn was standing on the front porch, completely soaked to the bone. His off-the-rack suit was drenched, his hair plastered to his forehead, shivering violently in the freezing forty-degree rain. He looked like a drowned rat, his eyes hollow, dark circles bruised beneath his sockets.
He saw me through the glass and pressed both palms against the pane, his voice cracking into a pathetic, desperate wail.
“Mabel! Please, for God's sake, just let me in for five minutes! I don't have anywhere to go! The banks froze everything! Selina left me! I don't have a dollar for a motel room!”
I stood on the warm, dry side of the glass, looking at him with steady, unblinking eyes.
I tapped the intercom button on the wall. “Flynn, you are in direct violation of a five-hundred-yard protective restraining order. Step off the porch immediately.”
“Mabel, please!” he sobbed, dropping to his knees on the wet wooden deck, pressing his forehead against the lower glass. “I am so sorry! I swear to God on my mother’s grave, I am so sorry! I was blind! I was stupid! Selina manipulated me—she seduced me and made me do things I never wanted to do!”
A bitter, cold smile touched my lips. Even at the absolute rock bottom of his life, kneeling in the freezing rain, the narcissist could not take responsibility for his own actions. It was still someone else’s fault.
“Selina didn't spend two years transferring two million dollars into a Cayman Islands account, Flynn,” I said through the speaker, my voice calm and completely devoid of emotion. “Selina didn't audit my grocery receipts to save four dollars on almond milk while paying thirty-two hundred a month for a Back Bay penthouse. You did that. All by yourself.”
“I’ll fix it!” he pleaded, his voice breaking into ragged gasps as he shivered uncontrollably. “I’ll give up all claims to everything! I’ll sign whatever you want! Just let me sleep on the couch tonight! Let me see Clara in the morning! I’m her father, Mabel! You can’t just erase seven years of our lives!”
“You erased those seven years the moment you let another woman sit on your lap wearing the necklace you told me we couldn't afford,” I replied.
“Mabel, please! I’m freezing! Have some mercy!”
“I am having mercy, Flynn,” I said, looking down at him through the glass. “I’m not calling the police to have you arrested for violating the restraining order tonight. But I have dispatched a private taxi to the end of the driveway. It is prepaid to take you to the municipal shelter in Waltham. You have sixty seconds to walk down the driveway, or I press the direct emergency dispatch button to the Newton Police.”
Flynn looked up at me, his face twisted in a mixture of profound shock, wounded vanity, and total despair. He realized that the gentle, compliant woman he had emotionally battered for four years was gone forever. Standing before him was an impenetrable wall of iron.
“You’re a monster,” he whispered through chattering teeth.
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“No, Flynn,” I said softly, turning off the exterior porch light and plunging him into darkness. “I’m just the owner of the house.”
Through the darkness, I watched the silhouette of Flynn Vance stand up, turn his back to the home he had destroyed, and slowly, miserably trudge down the long driveway into the freezing rain toward the waiting taxi.
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