Chapter 7 - The Family Gathering at the Lake House
The summons didn't arrive by mail. It was hand-delivered by a county sheriff’s deputy at 2:00 PM on a Saturday in late May, right in the middle of Marguerite’s annual Memorial Day weekend family barbecue at her estate by the lake.
According to my aunt Clara—who had quietly called me from her car four hours later, still shaking so hard she could barely hold her steering wheel—the scene on the back patio had been nothing short of catastrophic.
Marguerite had been slicing a grilled flank steak on her outdoor teak island when the deputy walked past the infinity pool, flashed his badge, and handed her husband a thick manila envelope stamped with the seal of the county circuit court.
Richard Vance had torn open the first page, his face turning the color of skim milk.
When he read the second page—the one detailing the emergency lien slapped against the commercial dealership lots and their personal bank accounts—he had dropped his glass of bourbon onto the stone patio, shattering it into a hundred glittering shards.
Dad had reportedly stood up from his cushioned wrought-iron armchair, his hands trembling as he demanded to know what was happening. When Marguerite realized where the paperwork had originated—when she saw my name listed as the primary plaintiff on the injunction petition—she had screamed so loud the neighbor’s golden retriever started howling from two houses down.
“She ruined us!” Marguerite had shrieked, according to Aunt Clara. “Over some petty grudge about a seating chart! She’s destroying her own family over a few thousand dollars!”
Dad hadn’t said a word. He had walked inside the house, sat down on the leather sofa in the theater room, and refused to come out for the rest of the afternoon.
Back in apartment 2B, life looked entirely different.
The dual monitors on my kitchen desk were no longer casting light on single-client ledgers. I now employed two part-time remote assistants who helped manage forty-two separate small business accounts across the county. My income had tripled in eight months.
Faye had a brand-new pair of leather saddle shoes for the spring recital, paid for in cash without checking the balance of our grocery envelope first.
May you like
Della had stopped hoarding crackers in her backpack; her teacher emailed me in mid-May to report that Della had proudly shared her bag of organic pretzels with a new girl in class, explaining with absolute confidence that “there’s always plenty more at our house.”
And Beckett had finally stopped pushing his thumb through the hole in his pocket because I had bought him a brand-new denim jacket with four functional pockets, none of which had any holes at all.
