Chapter 2 - Whose House Is This Anyway?
Patricia’s manufactured sorrow vanished instantly, replaced by a deep, ugly sneer. "Excuse me? What did you just say to me?"
"You heard me," Ethan said, standing square between them and where I stood bleeding. "Get your purses. Get your phones. Step outside my front door before I lose whatever sanity I have left."
Nicole let out an incredulous, high-pitched scoff. She slid off the barstool, folding her arms across her chest with an air of absolute superiority. "Ethan, be serious. You can't kick us out. I am six months pregnant with your niece. Where the hell am I supposed to go? To a motel? Are you insane?"
"I don't give a damn where you go," Ethan replied, not blinking. "You have sixty seconds."
"Ethan James Miller!" Patricia’s voice rose to a shrill screech that bounced off the high vaulted ceilings. "You listen to me, you ungrateful little boy! I gave birth to you! I raised you! I sacrificed everything for you! And now you stand in this mansion—a mansion you bought with your own success—and you kick your family onto the street for a jealous, barren little girl who can't even stand to see her sister-in-law carry a child?"
That was Patricia’s favorite dagger. We had suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage two years ago, an ordeal that had nearly broken my spirit. Ethan had held me every night while I wept. Patricia, on the other hand, had told the extended family at Thanksgiving that God simply knew I wasn't mother material.
Ethan’s face went pale with pure rage. "Say one more word about my wife, Mom. Say one more word."
"This is your house!" Patricia shrieked, pointing an accusatory, manicured finger at my chest. "You bought this! Your father’s bloodline paid for this roof! Her name on the deed is a courtesy, nothing more! When you two inevitably get divorced, I will make sure my high-priced lawyers leave her with nothing! She is a nobody from nowhere who latched onto your wallet!"
Nicole smirked, backing her mother up with a satisfied nod. "Exactly. She didn't buy anything. She just sits here ordering groceries online while you work eighty hours a week, Ethan. You're being manipulated by a narcissist who cuts her own hand to make Mama look like a monster!"
I couldn't help it; despite the throbbing pain shooting up my arm, a quiet, bitter laugh escaped my lips.
Patricia snapped her head toward me. "What are you laughing at, you little snake?"
"I’m laughing at how completely, pathetically blind you are," I said, meeting her venomous gaze without an ounce of fear. "You honestly believe Ethan paid for this house?"
"Of course he did!" Patricia sneered. "My son earns six figures!"
Ethan let out a ragged breath, rubbing his forehead as if he were trying to wake up from an unbearable nightmare. "Mom. Shut up."
"No, Ethan, let her tell you!" Patricia insisted loudly. "She’s brainwashed you! She’s turning you against your own blood! Ever since you married her, you stopped sending me my monthly check, you stopped paying Nicole’s car note—"
"Because I was going bankrupt, Mom!" Ethan suddenly roared, his voice booming through the cavernous living room like thunder. The entire room went dead silent. The anger on Nicole’s face froze. Patricia took half a step backward, stunned by the sheer volume of his shout.
"I was sixty days away from Chapter 7 bankruptcy three years ago," Ethan snarled, his eyes burning into his mother’s. "My business partner ran off with four hundred thousand dollars of client capital. The bank froze my operating accounts. The IRS put a lien on my name. Do you know who saved me? Do you know who mortgaged her late grandfather’s commercial property to clear my debts?"
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Ethan stepped forward, pointing an unwavering finger straight at me. "She did. Clara paid off every single cent. Clara put down the three-hundred-thousand-dollar down payment on this house from her own trust fund. Every stick of furniture, every appliance, every single luxury you’ve been bragging about to your country club friends—Clara owns it. I don't own this house alone. In fact, on paper, she owns seventy percent of it."
The color rapidly drained from Patricia’s face, leaving her chalky and hollow. Nicole’s mouth fell open, her smug demeanor shattering like glass.
