Chapter 5 - Taking Back What Was Built
Beverly appeared at the top of the stairs, dragging two massive hard-shell luggage bags behind her, her makeup half-applied and her hair disheveled. Behind her, she had dragged three hanging garment bags filled with evening wear.
""Officer!"" Beverly yelled, spotting Deputy Miller’s uniform. ""Thank God! Arrest these people! They are trespassing! They are harassing an innocent grandmother who came to care for her grandchildren!""
Deputy Miller adjusted his utility belt and looked up at her calmly. ""Mrs. Vance, I suggest you grab whatever else fits in your trunk. The magistrate signed the emergency exclusion order at midnight based on documented economic coercion and neglect of post-operative dependants. You have precisely twelve minutes before I cite you for criminal trespass.""
""Criminal trespass?"" she shrieked, her voice reaching a pitch that finally caused little Nora to stir and whimper in her bassinet.
I immediately picked Nora up, balancing both of my daughters against my chest. Caleb instantly stepped between Beverly and the babies, his massive frame completely blocking her view of my daughters.
""Keep it down,"" Caleb ordered softly. ""Or you won't be taking those bags with you.""
Beverly looked down the stairs, realizing with sickening certainty that no one was coming to rescue her. The police weren't on her side. Her son was a trembling wreck against the counter. Her daughter-in-law wasn't crying, pleading, or negotiating.
""Ethan!"" she hissed, stumbling down the remaining steps and dragging her bags onto the hardwood floor. ""Get your keys! We are going to a hotel. We will deal with this in court on Monday! Let them have their little tantrum! When the judge sees this, she will lose custody of those babies!""
""Custody?"" Owen laughed out loud, leaning against the doorframe. ""Beverly, you might want to check the domestic court statutes for this county. A father who formally abdicates financial responsibility for infant nourishment seventy-two hours postpartum, captured on video and audio, doesn't get custody. He gets supervised visitation at a county facility for two hours every alternate Saturday—and that’s only after he pays six months of court-ordered child support in advance.""
Ethan’s face turned an ashen shade of gray. He sank down against the island counter until he was sitting on the floor again, his knees pulled to his chest. ""I don't have that kind of money... my business account is tied up...""
""You had enough money to buy a commercial sub-zero refrigerator on twelve hours' notice,"" Dad pointed out, gesturing to Caleb.
Caleb slid the steel moving dolly beneath the new appliance. With one effortless pull, he tilted the massive three-thousand-dollar refrigerator onto its wheels. Caleb strapped it down with a heavy ratchet click, wheeled it across the kitchen tiles, out the patio doors, and rolled it straight down the ramp onto the back of Dad's flatbed truck.
""My groceries!"" Beverly cried out, clutching her designer handbag. ""There's three hundred dollars of imported French butter and aged ribeye in there!""
""It'll keep cool on the truck bed, Beverly,"" Caleb called back from the patio. ""It's thirty-eight degrees outside. Perfect refrigeration weather.""
""Now, Ethan,"" Dad said, turning toward his son-in-law. ""Your clothes have already been boxed. While Lauren was resting yesterday evening, Caleb and I packed your suits, your golf clubs, and your shoes. They are stacked neatly in the two storage bins by the garage doors. Deputy Miller will observe you loading them into your sedan.""
""Lauren... please,"" Ethan wept, looking up at me one last time. ""Just let me hold the girls. Just let me say goodbye to my daughters.""
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I looked down at the man I had promised to love for better or for worse. I had stood by him when his first startup failed. I had worked eighty-hour weeks to pay off his business school loans while he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. I had carried his children through nine months of debilitating sickness and high-risk complications. And the very second he thought I was vulnerable, he had tried to starve me into submission so his mother could run our home.
""You didn't care about holding them yesterday, Ethan,"" I said, my voice quiet, calm, and utterly final. ""Yesterday, they were just extra mouths you didn't want to feed. Get out of my house.""
