Chapter 7 - The Family Council
That evening, Dad summoned the entire family to his house.
I arranged for my trusted neighbor to stay with Calvin and Molly. I brought my laptop, an accordion folder full of certified documents, and my phone set to record audio the moment I crossed the threshold of my parents' home.
When I walked into the formal living room, the tension was suffocating.
Ross was sitting on the sofa, slouched, his eyes bloodshot, clutching a glass of scotch. Mom sat beside him, nervously stroking his arm, still trying to play the protector. Chloe was seated in the far corner on a solitary wooden chair, her arms folded tightly across her chest, refusing to look at her husband.
Dad stood by the fireplace, looking older than his seventy-two years, but his posture was rigid, military-straight.
"Now that we're all here," Dad said, cutting through the silence like a scalpel, "Ross has something he wants to say to Dana."
Ross swirled his scotch, refusing to meet my eyes. "I'm sorry the kids got cold, Dana. It was a chaotic night. I was juggling forty guests, catering staff, and business prospects. It was an oversight. You didn't have to call Mom and start a war."
"An oversight?" I said, standing in the center of the room. "You locked my eight-year-old daughter outside in sub-freezing temperatures because you were ashamed to let your wealthy friends see that your sister works for an hourly wage and couldn't dress her kids in designer cashmere."
"That's not true!" Ross flared up.
"It is true," Chloe interrupted from the corner, her voice cutting through the room like shattered glass. "You told me verbatim on the drive over that Dana’s kids looked like charity cases and that they’d ruin the networking energy of the evening."
Mom gasped, turning toward Chloe. "Chloe, how can you betray your husband like this in front of everyone?"
"Because my husband is a fraud, Eleanor!" Chloe shouted, standing up. "He took our children's college savings! He forged his sister's signature on commercial trading loans! The sheriff is going to serve a foreclosure notice on our front door next week!"
Mom recoiled as if she had been struck. She looked at Ross, her mouth trembling. "Ross... tell me she's lying. Tell me Chloe is just angry."
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Ross didn't answer. He simply took another swallow of his drink.
***
