Chapter 8 - The Golden Child in the Dust
Three months later, the cold Virginia winter settled over Richmond.
The Scott’s Addition loft Paige had bragged about was repossessed by the landlord following an eviction filing in general district court.
Her mid-century modern furniture was seized by private auctioneers to satisfy commercial vendor liens from the failed wine bar.
With her credit rating destroyed and her bank accounts frozen by court order, Paige was forced to move into a dingy, drafty one-bedroom basement apartment behind a strip mall on Midlothian Turnpike.
She was working forty hours a week as an hourly customer service representative at a national call center, earning fifteen dollars an hour to pay off three hundred dollars a month in court-ordered restitution fees.
Her designer coats were gone, sold to consignment shops in Carytown to pay for her utility deposits.
Her hair was unstyled, her nails unpolished, and the circle of trendy high-society friends who had attended her lavish dinner parties had completely vanished from her life.
On a rainy Tuesday evening, my phone buzzed on my desk at the accounting firm.
It was an unknown local number.
I tapped the speaker button. "Jacob Miller speaking."
A choked, ragged sob came through the line, followed by the sound of muffled traffic.
"Jake... please," Paige wept, her voice cracked with utter defeat. "My heating broke in this basement... the landlord won't fix it until next week. I don't have enough money for groceries and my electric bill."
I leaned back in my leather office chair, looking out over the city lights glistening on the James River.
"Call Mom, Paige," I said evenly.
"Mom doesn't have any money!" Paige cried out, her voice rising into an hysterical whimper. "Dad only gives her sixty dollars a week for groceries! She can't send me anything! Jake, I’m your sister! We share the same blood! You make six figures! You don't have a wife, you don't have kids... what else do you need your money for?"
There it was again.
The exact same entitlement. The exact same belief that my labor, my sweat, and my savings existed merely as an emergency reserve for her convenience.
"I need my money for my dignity, Paige," I said, my voice steady, calm, and final. "Something you traded away for a crook in a rented suit."
"Jake, please! Just two hundred dollars! Just for groceries!"
"You called me cruel and jealous at Sunday dinner, Paige," I reminded her softly. "You told me whoever accused you was lying. You sat there while Mom screamed that she didn't care if the truth mattered or not."
I took a slow breath of the clean, warm office air.
May you like
"The truth matters, Paige," I said. "And the truth is, you made your bed in that basement. Now you get to sleep in it."
I ended the call, tapped the screen to block the number, and went back to balancing my corporate ledgers.
