Chapter 5 - Eleanor's Desperation
At four o'clock that afternoon, a sleek white sedan pulled violently into my driveway, tires spinning on the packed ice before slamming to a halt. My mother, Eleanor, emerged from the driver's side wearing an ankle-length camel coat, her designer sunglasses pushed up into her styled blonde hair. She marched up the concrete walkway, banging both fists against our storm door without waiting to wipe her designer boots on the mat.
"Kate! Open this door right now!" she screamed through the glass. "Stop hiding behind lawyers and face your family!"
I opened the door, standing firmly in the frame without unlatching the interior screen. "Lower your voice, Eleanor. Emma is inside, and you are not welcome in this house."
My mother froze, startled by my refusal to use the word 'Mom.' Her face flushed crimson beneath her expensive foundation. "Do you have any idea what you're doing to us? Your father's blood pressure is through the roof! The bank called him an hour ago! They are freezing our accounts pending a forensic audit of the Oakridge equity line! Ruth won't answer her phone; she instructed the nursing home desk to bar us from the property!"
"Grandma Ruth is resting comfortably," I answered evenly. "And she made her decision based on your conduct."
"It was an accident!" Eleanor cried out, her voice cracking into high-pitched panic. "You know how chaotic hosting Christmas is! Dana’s children were running through the halls, the turkey was twenty minutes late, and Emma showed up completely out of nowhere without an RSVP!"
"She was invited two weeks ago, Eleanor," I reminded her, keeping my arms crossed over my chest. "You sent her a handwritten invitation card in our mailbox. She spent four days hand-painting an ornament for you with gold calligraphy because she wanted to make you proud. When she handed it to you at the door, you told her 'not now' and shut the wood in her face."
Eleanor swallowed hard, her eyes darting away toward the snowy yard. "I... I was overwhelmed! I didn't realize her phone was dead! We assumed you were waiting in the car at the end of the driveway!"
"My eleven-year-old daughter walked twenty-two minutes in fifteen-degree weather while your family laughed at her dress," I said, stepping closer to the glass. "You didn't care if she froze. You cared that she wasn't wearing four-hundred-dollar boots and driving a new car like Dana's children. You wanted an elite, picture-perfect holiday for your social circle, and you thought my child was disposable."
"We will apologize to her!" Eleanor pled, suddenly grasping at the doorframe, tears finally breaking through her vanity. "We will host a new dinner this weekend! We will buy her whatever she wants from the department store! Just tell Ruth to revoke the demand notice! If that house goes into probate foreclosure, your father and I have nowhere to go! We poured every dollar of our savings into renovating that kitchen!"
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"You didn't renovate that kitchen with your savings, Eleanor," I said quietly. "You renovated it with three hundred and eighty thousand dollars stolen from Grandma Ruth's trust. The conversation is over. Speak to Arthur."
I closed the heavy oak door, locked the deadbolt, and drew the curtains closed, leaving my mother standing alone on the frozen porch, weeping into her designer scarf.
