Chapter 1 - The College Fund Emptied
The kitchen in our house in Des Moines had always been the loudest room, but tonight the silence felt heavier than concrete. Grant Mercer—my father—stared at the screen of his phone as if it were a venomous snake. His face had gone chalk-white, the weathered lines around his eyes stark against his pale skin. Across from him, Blythe Mercer stood frozen beside the stainless-steel refrigerator, her manicured fingers still clutching a dry dish towel like a lifeline.
"Grant," she began, her voice dropping into that smooth, practiced cadence she used when trying to convince a client that a luxury sofa fit into a cramped living room. "Let's not overreact. There are business expenses—"
"Fifty-nine thousand, seven hundred dollars, Blythe," my father interrupted. His voice wasn't loud. It was terrifyingly quiet, the kind of stillness that precedes a structural collapse. "That wasn't a business expense. That was a wire transfer to an account ending in four thousand. A personal account."
I stood frozen by the doorway, my younger brother Reid right beside me. We had been waiting for dinner to be served—waiting for the usual lecture about how we needed to cut back on our electricity usage and stop asking for gas money for college visits—when the digital banking notification had detonated our lives. That money wasn't just numbers on a screen. It was the sacred promise our father had made to us after our mother died. It was our future, carefully hoarded dollar by dollar through double shifts at the manufacturing facility.
"You said we were tight on money," I blurted out, stepping into the kitchen light. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. "You made us cancel our tour to Iowa State because of gas costs. You told us we had to babysit the twins every single day because you couldn't afford a professional sitter. And all this time—"
"Laurel, stay out of this," Blythe snapped, her cool veneer cracking just enough to show the panicked calculation underneath. "This is adult business. You and Reid have no idea what it takes to run a household of four—"
"Four?" Reid's voice cut through the room, sharp and trembling with a rage I had never heard in my sixteen-year-old brother before. "There are six of us, Blythe. Or did you forget that you and your twins weren't even part of this family three years ago?"
"Reid!" Dad slammed his palm onto the laminate table. The coffee mugs rattled. He looked back and forth between his glamorous, younger wife and his two older children, the realization dawning in his eyes with agonizing slowness. "Blythe. Where did the money go? I want bank statements. Right now."
She dropped the dish towel. It fluttered to the floor like a white flag. "If you must know, Grant, my interior design startup required capital. Suppliers demanded upfront payments for the downtown showroom. If I don't invest in my business, it fails, and then how do you expect us to pay the mortgage?"
"You didn't talk to me," Dad whispered, horror bleeding into his tone. "You drained my children's college fund without saying a word."
"Because you would have said no out of sentimentality!" She crossed her arms, her chin lifting in an obstinate tilt that made her look remarkably like fourteen-month-old Mabel when she was denied a cookie. "Those kids are seventeen and sixteen. They can get loans. They can work their way through school like everyone else. Mabel and Finn are babies. They need a stable home, a mother with a thriving career, and a proper environment."
I felt a cold numbness wash over my skin, replacing the hot anger. The mask had slipped completely. To Blythe, Reid and I weren't children of the household; we were unpaid labor, and our futures were expendable collateral damage for her ambitions.
Dad didn't answer her. He sat back in his chair, pulling his hands down over his face. For the first time, he looked old. He looked broken.
"Pack your bags," Dad said softly to the wall.
Blythe blinked, her eyes widening. "Grant? What are you saying?"
"I said pack your bags, Blythe. Go stay with your mother. Because until I figure out where every single cent of that fifty-nine thousand dollars went, I don't want you sleeping under this roof."
May you like
She stared at him, realizing for the first time that her manipulation had hit a brick wall. But as she turned toward the hallway, she cast a venomous glare in our direction—a look that promised this war was only just beginning.
***
