Chapter 6 - The Financial Scaffold
The double mahogany doors of St. Anne’s Preparatory clicked shut behind us, but the echo of Kendra’s screaming didn't stop until we reached the brick courtyard.
"Mallory! Mallory Jane, you stop right now!"
Phyllis was running down the stone steps.
Her immaculate composure was completely gone. Her beige trench coat was unbuttoned, flapping wildly around her knees in the damp autumn wind, her designer handbag swinging from her forearm like an unexploded mortar shell. Behind her, Kendra stumbled across the gravel, dragging Nora by the hand, her face contorted into that raw, feral panic of a grifter who had just watched the vault door slam shut from the wrong side.
"You ruined her life!" Kendra shrieked, lunging toward my driver’s side door as I opened it for Charlotte. "Do you have any idea what an expulsion on a preparatory record does? No private school in this county will touch her! St. Anne’s is the feeder for the academy! You just destroyed your niece’s entire academic future over a plastic dragon!"
I gently lifted Charlotte into her booster seat, clicked the heavy five-point harness into place, and smoothed the collar of her yellow cardigan.
"Charlotte," I said softly, looking into her clear, untroubled brown eyes. "Put your headphones on and pick a song. Mommy needs to speak with your aunt for two minutes."
Charlotte nodded solemnly, slipped the padded blue headphones over her ears, and turned toward the window, her little shoulders relaxing against the seat.
I closed the rear door with a solid, heavy thud.
I turned around, leaning my back against the side of my car, crossing my arms over my chest.
"Speak quietly, Kendra," I said, my voice dead and level. "You are in an elementary school parking lot. You have already embarrassed yourself in front of the board of trustees. Don't make them call the municipal patrol to remove you twice in twenty-four hours."
"How dare you!" Phyllis hissed, marching up until her face was six inches from mine. The smell of her peppermint lozenges was sharp and suffocating in the cold air. "How dare you speak to your sister like that! You sat in that office and played a private home video for a stranger! You humiliated this family! You turned an administrative leader against your own blood!"
"I didn't turn anyone against you, Mother," I said, looking down into her cold, wrinkled eyes. "The video was your performance. The words were your words. The cruelty was your cruelty. Director Vance simply held up a mirror, and you couldn't stand the sight of your own reflection."
"You lied about the tuition!" Kendra screamed, stepping between us, her acrylic nails jabbing into the air toward my collar. "You signed a contract with St. Anne’s for the full year! The bursar’s office said the second semester balance of seven thousand two hundred dollars is due by Friday! If it’s not cleared by five o'clock, they send the file to commercial collections!"
"Then you should write a check by Friday, Kendra," I replied smoothly.
"With what money?" Kendra wailed, her voice cracking into pure, unadulterated hysteria. "You know damn well Mark’s commercial framing company is in slow season! You know my boutique accounts don't clear until the third quarter! I don't have seven thousand dollars sitting in a checking account!"
"Then sell the car," I said.
Kendra froze. Her mouth fell open slightly, her eyes widening in sudden, sickening horror. "What?"
"Sell the SUV, Kendra," I said, each word dropping like an iron weight into the freezing morning air. "The pearl-white crossover you drive Nora to ballet in. The one with the heated leather seats and the custom audio package."
"That is my family car!" she shrieked. "How am I supposed to take my children to their appointments? How am I supposed to live?"
"You can take the municipal bus, Kendra," I said. "Or you can buy a seven-hundred-dollar Honda Civic off Craigslist like I had to do when Charlotte was four months old, while you and Mom were spending two thousand dollars a weekend in Scottsdale."
"Mallory, that is enough!" Phyllis commanded, her voice trembling with an ancient, imperious rage. "You will reinstate that school account this afternoon! And you will transfer the funds for my condominium association fees! Mr. Henderson placed a delinquent assessment envelope in my brass box this morning! In front of Mrs. Gable! He told me the building will deactivate my parking garage transponder on Monday if the eighteen hundred dollars isn't cleared!"
I looked at my mother.
Really looked at her.
I looked at the gold-plated buttons on her coat, the diamond studs in her ears that my father had bought her for their thirtieth anniversary, and the cold, bottomless entitlement that had consumed her soul for forty years.
"Mr. Henderson is an efficient administrator, Mother," I said softly. "You should listen to him."
"You are my daughter!" Phyllis roared, her face turning an ugly, mottled purple. "I carried you for nine months! I sacrificed my youth for you! The Fourth Commandment says honor thy father and thy mother! You owe me this life!"
"I paid the debt, Mother," I whispered, stepping forward until she had to take a step backward onto the wet asphalt. "I paid it for six years. I paid seventy-two mortgage installments on your condo. I paid for your cruise tickets. I paid for your dental implants. I paid for your groceries while you told your friends that my father left you comfortable, and that I was just an unglamorous accountant who did spreadsheets from home."
I reached into my pocket, pulled out my car keys, and clicked the unlock button.
"The account is closed, Phyllis," I said. "The HOA is yours. The electric bill is yours. The grocery bill is yours. And if you ever—if either of you ever—approach my daughter, enter my property, or say Charlotte's name in this town again... I will take that video, I will walk into the county prosecutor's office, and I will file formal charges for filing a false police report and contributing to the delinquency of a minor."
I opened my door, climbed behind the wheel, and pulled it shut.
Through the tinted glass, I watched Phyllis and Kendra standing on the wet gravel of the St. Anne’s parking lot.
May you like
Kendra was sobbing into her hands, while Phyllis stood rigid as an iron post, screaming soundless curses into the rain, clutching her designer bag against her chest like an armor that could no longer keep out the cold.
I shifted the car into drive, backed smoothly out of the stall, and drove out through the wrought-iron gates, leaving the paper castle behind in the rearview mirror.
