Chapter 5 - The Invitation
A week later, a thick cream-colored envelope arrived in my mailbox.
It wasn't an ordinary piece of mail. It was a heavy cardstock invitation embossed with silver lettering, delivered directly by standard mail service.
I opened it at the kitchen counter.
You are cordially invited to celebrate the upcoming arrival of baby Sterling, it read.
Harper’s baby shower. Scheduled for Saturday afternoon at the Ashton Gardens Country Club—one of the most exclusive, expensive private venues in the city.
At the bottom of the invitation, handwritten in my mother’s familiar, looping cursive, was a personal postscript:
Please come. Harper really needs her sister right now. Let’s put this silliness behind us.
Before I could toss the card into the recycling bin, my phone rang. Caller ID showed my father’s cell number. I pressed answer.
“Naomi,” my father’s voice came through, quiet and strained, as if he were speaking from inside a closet so my mother wouldn't hear him.
“Hey, Dad.”
“You should probably come to that shower on Saturday,” he said hesitantly.
I frowned. “Why would I go to a party thrown by people who tried to steal my house?”
A long, uncomfortable pause hung on the line. I could hear the faint murmur of a television in the background at his house, and then my mother’s voice calling out from another room.
“Dad?” I prompted.
“Your mother’s been telling people you worked things out,” he said quietly, dropping his voice even lower.
I gripped the phone tighter. “What does that mean?”
“She’s been telling everyone at her club and the family circle that you had a change of heart,” my father said, sounding deeply exhausted. “She told them you realized you overreacted about the house, and that on Saturday, during the shower, you’re going to make a special public announcement about transferring the title over to Harper and Chase so they can settle down before the baby arrives.”
My mother hadn't just misinterpreted my refusal. She had fabricated an entire narrative, broadcasted it across her social network, and turned Harper’s baby shower into a public stage designed to corner me into surrendering my home in front of forty witnesses.
She assumed that in front of a crowd of respectable family friends, church members, and local society women, I wouldn't dare make a scene. She thought she had engineered an inescapable social trap.
“Thanks for telling me, Dad,” I said softly.
May you like
“Naomi, don't do anything reckless,” he warned. “Your mother, she gets these ideas in her head and—”
“Don't worry, Dad,” I interrupted, a cold smile touching the corners of my mouth. “I won't do anything reckless. But I think I’ll attend.”
