Chapter 10 - Brad’s Exit
By Tuesday afternoon, the scandal had broken through the private walls of our family and spilled directly into Lauren’s social circle.
Eric called me at two o'clock, his voice carrying the first genuine laugh I had heard from him in five years.
“You’re not going to believe what just happened at the Sterling estate,” Eric said.
I leaned back in my office chair at work. “Tell me.”
“Brad’s father found out,” Eric said, chuckling. “Apparently, one of your cousins works at the title agency where the fraud was flagged. The news traveled through the local real estate community like lightning. Brad’s father called Brad into his office this morning, threw a copy of the pending criminal indictment on the desk, and told him that if he married a woman facing grand theft charges, he would be removed from the firm’s partnership track.”
“And what did golden boy Brad do?”
“He packed Lauren’s luggage into three trash bags, set them on the curb outside his penthouse, changed the digital locks, and blocked her number,” Eric said, savoring every syllable. “Lauren showed up at his building throwing rocks at his balcony until the building concierge threatened to have her arrested. She’s currently sitting in Mom’s living room, screaming at the walls, with nowhere left to go.”
A heavy sense of poetic closure settled over me. Lauren had sold her soul, her dignity, and her family’s shelter to secure a wealthy husband and a luxury lifestyle. In the end, her own greed had stripped her of both.
“And Noah?” I asked gently.
“Noah is with me,” Eric’s voice softened, full of relief. “The judge granted an emergency temporary custody order this morning based on the criminal investigation and the domestic disturbance calls at the house. Lauren can only see him under court-ordered supervision. She can’t hurt him anymore, Maya. You saved us.”
“We saved each other, Eric,” I said.
That evening, I drove out to the old neighborhood one last time. I parked my car two blocks away, beneath the bare branches of an old oak tree, and walked slowly down the sidewalk in the freezing December air.
The house sat at the end of the cul-de-sac. The same house where I had opened presents on Christmas morning, where I had studied for college exams at the kitchen table, and where I had handed my parents an eighty-thousand-dollar check to keep them from being homeless five years ago.
The front yard was dark. No holiday lights adorned the roof this year. In the middle of the lawn, illuminated by the harsh glare of a streetlamp, stood a freshly hammered wooden sign:
*NOTICE OF FORECLOSURE SALE — PUBLIC AUCTION JAN 15.*
In the second-floor window, the lace curtain parted. A shadowy figure looked out into the street. It was my mother. Even from fifty yards away, I could see the slumped curvature of her shoulders, the vacant, haunted stillness of a woman who had gambled everything on the wrong child and lost it all.
She didn't see me standing in the shadows beneath the trees.
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I pulled my scarf tighter around my neck, turned my back on the house, and walked away. I had survived the slap. I had survived the betrayal. And I was finally free.
Or so I thought.
