Chapter 3 - The Basement Parasites
The downstairs hallway smelled of stale cigarette smoke, unwashed workout gear, and cheap body spray—a suffocating olfactory signature that had steadily encroached upon our living space over the past three years.
When Derek first moved into our finished basement, Caleb had framed it as a temporary safety net. Just six months, Caleb had promised over dinner when we were newly married. He’s trying to get his graphic design freelance business off the ground. He just needs a quiet place to reset after his apartment lease fell through.
Six months had stretched into a year. A year had metastasized into three.
And then, six months ago, Paige had arrived with two suitcases and a miniature Pomeranian that barked at shadows. She didn't have a job, nor did she appear to be looking for one. Her daily routine consisted of sleeping until noon, ordering takeout that arrived at our front door under my name, and sprawling across our leather sectional in the upstairs living room to binge reality television while wearing my cashmere cardigans.
I pushed open the basement door, my knuckles rapping sharply against the hollow wooden panel before I descended the stairs.
Caleb’s truck was still missing from the driveway, which meant Derek and Paige were likely the only occupants of the lower level. I needed answers, and I needed them before Caleb returned home to spin another web of smooth-talking justifications.
The basement recreation room looked like a disaster zone. Pizza boxes were stacked in wobbling towers beside a overflowing trash can. Empty soda cans littered the coffee table, half-submerged in stale liquid.
Derek was slumped in an oversized gaming chair in front of an illuminated triple-monitor setup, a heavy-duty headset clamped over one ear. Paige was curled up on the sectional across the room, scrolling mindlessly through her phone while a reality show played at top volume on the mounted television.
Neither of them looked up as I stepped onto the linoleum floor near the base of the stairs.
I walked over to the television console and hit the power button on the remote, plunging the room into sudden, jarring silence.
Paige jumped, letting out a shrill squeak as her phone slipped from her fingers onto the cushions. "Hey! What are you doing? I was watching that!"
Derek shoved his headset down around his neck, blinking against the sudden loss of screen glare. He glared at me with the sullen, aggrieved expression of a teenager caught mid-vandalism. "Mom. What’s your deal? You scared the hell out of Paige."
I didn't blink. I stood tall, my arms crossed tightly over my chest, channeling every ounce of cold fury that had been accumulating in my veins since I walked into Brooke's bedroom.
"Where is your father?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm.
Derek rubbed the back of his neck, looking away. "How should I know? He went to pick up some lumber from the supply yard in town. Why? Did he forget something?"
"He forgot to mention a few things," I said, stepping closer into their cluttered domain. I looked around the room, taking in the expensive electronics, the custom gaming rigs, the designer sneakers piled by the sliding glass door—all funded, directly or indirectly, by the household budget Caleb managed. "Let's talk about Brooke."
Paige rolled her eyes, leaning back against the sofa cushions with an audible huff. "Oh, god. Is this about the packing boxes upstairs? Because honestly, it’s about time. That girl has zero boundaries. She walks around here like she owns the place."
I whipped my head toward Paige, my gaze sharp enough to draw blood. "Excuse me?"
Paige blinked, shrinking back slightly under the ferocity of my tone. "Well... it's true. Derek and I need space. We're trying to build a future, and we can't do that when a seventeen-year-old is constantly underfoot, taking up the upstairs bathroom and leaving her camera gear all over the kitchen island."
"This is her home," I said, each word dropping like a lead weight onto the carpet. "She has lived in this house for ten years. You, Paige, have lived here for six months without contributing a single red cent to mortgage, taxes, utilities, or groceries. You don't even have a key."
Derek bristled, pushing himself up out of the gaming chair. His posture mirrored his father’s—broad-shouldered, defensive, accustomed to talking their way out of accountability. "Come on, stepmom. Don't start acting like Brooke is some kind of charity case. Dad told us the deal weeks ago. She’s eighteen now. Time for her to fly the coop. Every normal family encourages their kids to move out after high school."
"Every normal family doesn't evict their child behind the mother's back using forged consensus!" I shouted, the controlled veneer finally cracking open.
Derek blinked, genuine confusion flickering across his slack features. "Forged... what? Dad said you agreed."
"Your father lied," I said, my voice dropping back to a trembling, lethal whisper. "He told Brooke that I wanted her gone. He told her she had thirty days to pack her bags, and then he forced her to sell her camera just to afford a miserable rented room across town."
Paige let out a short, defensive scoff. "Well, maybe she should have saved her money better instead of buying expensive camera lenses."
I turned on Paige so fast she flinched. "That camera was bought with her own sweat, Paige! Every single dollar came from waking up at dawn while you were sleeping off a hangover in our basement! She earned every piece of equipment she owned, and your father manipulated her into selling it so you and Derek could expand your squatter's kingdom into her bedroom!"
"Hey! Watch your mouth!" Derek stepped between us, his chest puffed out, towering over me. "Don't you talk to Paige like that! This wasn't just Dad's idea, okay? We talked about it as a family weeks ago at dinner!"
I froze, the air evaporating from my lungs. "What did you say?"
Derek crossed his arms, looking smugly justified. "At dinner. Three weeks ago. Dad brought it up. He said Brooke needed to move out so Paige and I could take over the second-floor suite since the basement gets too damp for Paige's allergies. And you sat right there at the table and nodded!"
My heart stopped.
I stood paralyzed as the memory violently surfaced, ripping through my mind like a lightning strike.
Three weeks ago. A Tuesday night. We had been eating lasagna. Caleb had been talking animatedly across the table about how Derek and Paige needed more room to "stabilize their professional trajectory," complaining that the basement humidity was bad for Paige’s respiratory health. He had looked at me across the candles and said, "We need to help the kids expand upstairs, don't you think, honey? It’s time for everyone to take the next step."
And I had smiled. I had nodded.
I had thought he was talking about letting Derek and Paige move into the guest room down here, or perhaps fixing up the storage room.
Caleb hadn't mentioned Brooke. Not once. He had framed the entire conversation around Derek’s career and Paige’s health, wrapping the execution of my daughter in a shroud of vague, domestic double-speak, securing my automatic, tired agreement without ever disclosing the real target.
I had signed my daughter's eviction notice with a polite nod over lasagna.
The realization hit me with such physical force I staggered backward, my hand catching the wooden banister of the basement stairs to keep from falling.
Derek’s smug expression faltered slightly as he saw the absolute horror draining the color from my face. "Uh... Mom? You okay?"
"You didn't know," Paige whispered, a sudden, sharp edge of panic creeping into her voice as she looked between Derek and me. "You... you actually didn't know?"
I didn't answer them. I turned around, gripped the handrail, and hauled myself up the basement stairs as fast as my shaking legs could carry me.
My phone was in my pocket. My fingers were trembling so violently I dropped it twice on the hardwood floor of the kitchen before I managed to unlock the screen.
I dialed Caleb’s cell phone number.
It rang once. Twice. Three times.
Then went straight to voicemail.
“Hi, this is Caleb. Leave a message.”
I hung up, dialed again, and let out a choked, furious sob as the phone rang into the empty, silent house.
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He had cut her out. He had sold her future to appease his lazy son and a freeloading girlfriend. And he had used my own passive compliance as the weapon to do it.
By the time the front door finally clicked open an hour later, I was standing in the center of the kitchen with a kitchen knife in one hand and a suitcase sitting by the front door—not Brooke's suitcase, but Caleb's.
