Chapter 7 - The First Crack in the Golden Wall
While our new life on Elm Street flourished, the fortress at 1442 Maplewood Lane was beginning to crumble from within.
January brought freezing temperatures and a harsh economic reality for my brother Eric. His latest business venture—a speculative real estate flipping company that relied entirely on my parents’ financial backing and cash infusions from Judith’s social club circle—hit a brick wall. Local housing prices dipped, carrying costs soared, and three properties he had purchased on margin sat unsold.
According to Allison, who had started calling me secretly on burner numbers while Eric was out of the house, my mother was in a state of permanent, raging panic.
“Judith is losing her mind, Grant,” Allison whispered over the phone one Tuesday evening while I was reviewing architectural blueprints for the Hanover Medical Center renovation. “She tried to borrow fifty thousand dollars from her bridge club treasurer, and the woman laughed in her face. And Eric… Eric is a wreck. He’s screaming at Caleb, he’s screaming at Arthur, and he keeps demanding that Mom figure out a way to mortgage the main house.”
“Can she mortgage the main house?” I asked, sipping my coffee.
“She can’t,” Allison sighed. “Because, as it turns out, your father secretly put his foot down last week. Arthur refused to sign the equity loan papers. For the first time in forty years, he told Judith no.”
I raised an eyebrow in genuine astonishment. Arthur, the eternal bystander, had finally found a spine.
“How did Mother take that?”
“How do you think?” Allison groaned. “She threw a Waterford crystal vase at the fireplace, accused your father of betraying his own flesh and blood, and hasn’t spoken a word to him in five days. The house is completely toxic, Grant. I’m seriously thinking about packing up Caleb and staying at my sister’s place in Vermont.”
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“You know you and Caleb are always welcome to drop by for dinner, Allison,” I said genuinely. Despite Caleb’s bratty behavior at Christmas—which was clearly a product of being raised by monsters—he was still just a nine-year-old kid warped by my mother’s grotesque coddling.
“Thanks, Grant. I might just take you up on that,” Allison said softly before hanging up.
