Chapter 2 - The Wrath of the Flying Monkeys
By noon, the quiet of my new neighborhood had settled back into a peaceful suburban rhythm. A neighbor two doors down was mowing his lawn; the faint, sweet scent of cut grass drifted through the open upper windows of my home. But inside my phone, a war was raging.
The screen lit up every forty-five seconds. Missed calls, voice memos, and text notifications stacked up like cordwood.
It wasn't just my mother and sisters anymore. The family network had been activated.
My Aunt Clara—my mother’s older sister, who hadn't spoken to me since my college graduation except to forward chain letters about miracle cures—was the first extended relative to weigh in.
*Audrey, I cannot believe what your mother is telling me,* her message read. *She is sitting in a parking lot in tears, hyperventilating. Brianna says you locked them out in the cold with nowhere to go. Family takes care of family! You need to drop this stubborn pride, apologize to your mother, and open those doors. Remember what the Bible says about honoring your parents.*
Before I could even process that, a voicemail dropped from my cousin Greg.
"Hey, Aud," Greg’s drawl filled the room as I put the phone on speaker. "Look, I don't know what kind of power trip you’re on, but Brianna’s stuff is sitting in some warehouse and she was supposed to start a new job on Monday. She doesn't have the cash to put down a first and last month’s deposit on an apartment this weekend. Just let them stay in the basement or something until they figure it out. Don't be that person, man. You’ve always been the responsible one."
*The responsible one.*
The words tasted like ash. That was the title they had bestowed upon me when I was sixteen years old, the night my father suffered a massive coronary at the kitchen table and died before the paramedics could turn onto our street.
I was the responsible one because I didn't cry loud enough to make a scene. I was the responsible one because I got a job at the local diner three days after the funeral to pay for the groceries while Mom stayed in bed with cold compresses. I was the responsible one because when financial aid checks arrived during my college years, half the money went straight into an account Mom controlled to 'help keep the roof over the girls' heads.'
I walked into the kitchen, poured myself a glass of tap water, and opened the family group chat.
Brianna had posted a photo. It was a selfie taken from the front seat of her car. Her mascara was artfully smudged beneath her eyes, her lips parted in an expression of tragic vulnerability.
*Homeless because my own sister decided her ego was more important than having a family,* the caption read. *Anyone know a cheap motel in Lakewood that takes dogs? Madison and I are literally sleeping in our cars tonight.*
Below it, Madison had chimed in: *She’s a monster. I hope the house burns down with her in it.*
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. For ten years, my instinct would have been to de-escalate. I would have texted: *Nobody has to sleep in a car. I can pay for a hotel for two nights while you look for a place.* I would have thrown money at their rage until they quieted down, mistaking their temporary silence for peace.
Instead, I took a screenshot of the chat. Then I typed:
*The storage unit is paid through the end of the month. You all have jobs. You all chose to break your leases without a signed rental agreement with me. Any further communication regarding this property must go through my real estate attorney, David Vance. His office number has been provided below.*
I pasted David’s contact information and hit send.
Then I did what I should have done five years ago: I tapped the settings icon, navigated to the group chat details, and clicked *Leave Conversation*.
Next, I opened my contacts and systematically placed my mother, Brianna, Chloe, and Madison onto the blocked list.
The sudden silence in the room was almost physical.
No more vibrations. No more alert tones. Just the hum of the new refrigerator in my kitchen—a low, quiet, steady hum that sounded nothing like the roaring, rattling appliance from my old studio apartment.
I sat down at the island on a temporary stool. My hands were shaking, not with fear, but with the adrenaline of a prisoner who had just hopped the perimeter fence and realized the guards weren't chasing her anymore—they were just standing on the wall, screaming into the wind.
But I knew my family. Evelyn Miller had never lost a battle of wills in her life. She was a woman who used guilt like a surgeon used a scalpel: cutting straight to the nerve while convincing the patient that the pain was their own fault.
She wouldn't simply pack her things and find an apartment. She had been humiliated. She had paraded her daughters to a five-bedroom house, boasted to her friends that her family was finally reunited under one grand roof, and been turned away at the threshold.
She would want blood.
May you like
I picked up my laptop, pulled up my banking portals, and began the real work: building the wall high enough that not even their deepest poisons could seep through.
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