Chapter 5 - The Family Leech Brigade
“What do you mean she doesn't have the money?” I asked, leaning against the cold granite island with genuine amusement. “You handed her ten thousand dollars in cash just five days ago. The utility bills for your half totaled less than fifteen hundred dollars. Where did the remaining eighty-five hundred go?”
Alexander groaned, slumping back onto the couch like a deflated balloon. “Bradley took five thousand for the BMW lease down payment. Then Mom went shopping on Michigan Avenue and bought three designer handbags and two coats. Then she took her church friends out for an expensive champagne brunch to celebrate my promotion. And yesterday... yesterday Bradley went to an underground poker game and lost the rest.”
I let out a soft, appreciative whistle. “Ten thousand dollars. Obliterated in ninety-six hours. Your mother and brother possess an extraordinary talent for wealth destruction, Alexander. It’s almost impressive.”
“Eleanor, please!” Alexander begged, falling to his knees on the hardwood floor, his pride completely shattered. The arrogant corporate vice president who had strutted through our foyer on Monday was gone; in his place was a desperate, shivering boy. “Just pay the electric bill! Put me back on your credit card! I haven't eaten a hot meal in three days! My phone battery is at four percent! I have to present quarterly projections to the board on Monday morning, and my laptop is completely dead!”
“Call your mother,” I said simply.
“I DID!” he yelled, tears of frustration finally spilling over his hollow cheeks. “I called her this afternoon! I told her I was freezing in the dark! I asked her to loan me two thousand dollars from her personal savings so I could restore the utilities!”
“And what did the saintly woman who sacrificed everything say?”
Alexander’s voice cracked into a pathetic whimper. “She told me that a grown man shouldn't ask his elderly mother for money. She told me that if my wife was being difficult, I should assert my legal rights as head of the household and force you to sell the house so we could split the millions in equity.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
I looked down at my husband, feeling no anger, no sadness, and not a single shred of pity. For five years, I had quietly protected him from the harsh realities of the world. I had allowed him to play the role of the wealthy, successful patriarch while I quietly poured hundreds of thousands of dollars of my own independent wealth into building our life. And at the very first taste of personal success, his immediate instinct had been to strip me of respect, give his loyalty to his toxic family, and plot to strip my assets.
“She told you to sell the house?” I asked softly.
“Yes,” Alexander whispered, looking up with a faint, pathetic glimmer of hope in his eyes. “She said we could cash out our three million dollars of equity, buy two smaller properties, and live debt-free. Eleanor... maybe we should consider it. If we sell, we don't have to deal with these ridiculous carrying costs anymore.”
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I reached into my designer handbag, pulled out a certified legal document bearing the official seal of the Cook County Deeds Office, and dropped it onto the coffee table right between his empty pizza boxes.
“Read page one, Alexander. And read it very carefully.”
