Chapter 4 - The Flying Monkeys
The drive home was quiet.
Holly sat in the back of the SUV, holding the small brass key against her chest like a talisman. Outside the tinted windows, the gray December sky hung heavy over the Pennsylvania hills, threatening snow.
"Dad?" Holly whispered after twenty minutes on the highway.
Brandon looked at her in the rearview mirror, his expression immediately softening. "Yeah, bug?"
"Did I do something wrong?"
Brandon signaled, pulled the SUV onto the shoulder of the rural route, and put the vehicle in park. He unbuckled his seatbelt, turned all the way around in his seat, and reached into the back to take both of her small hands in his.
"Holly, look at me," he said.
Holly looked up, her dark eyes shiny with unshed tears.
"Your grandmother is an unhappy person," Brandon said slowly, making sure every syllable hit home. "Some people are so empty inside that the only way they know how to feel full is by making other people feel small. When she gave you that candle, she was trying to tell you that you didn't matter. But she doesn't have the power to decide that. Nobody does. Especially not someone who treats people like pawns on a chessboard."
"Is she going to lose her house?" Holly asked.
"She made choices," Brandon replied. "And when you are an adult, you have to pay for the choices you make. You didn't take her house, Holly. Her own cruelty did."
We arrived back at our two-story craftsman home just past noon. But the peace didn't last.
By 2:15 p.m., the phone started ringing.
It began with Aunt Clara. Brandon let it go to voicemail.
*“Brandon, pick up. This is insane. Your mother is having heart palpitations. Dr. Morris had to come by and check her blood pressure. You can't do this to her at her age! Think about the family name! Call Greg back immediately!”*
At 3:30 p.m., there was a heavy knock on our front door.
I opened it to find Uncle Greg standing on the porch, his coat unbuttoned, his face red from the cold and agitation.
"Brandon," he said, pushing past me without wiping his boots. "We need to talk."
Brandon came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel. "Wipe your feet, Greg. And take your voice down. Holly is upstairs reading."
"You need to call off this lawyer nonsense," Greg said, pacing the living room rug. "Mom called her friends at the country club. She’s threatening to tell everyone in town that you're kicking a widow out on the street. Do you know what that will do to our firm? Do you know what clients will say if they think we're involved in elder abuse?"
"Elder abuse?" Brandon let out a short, dry laugh. "Greg, I have carried your mortgage payments three times in the last five years. Did you tell your clients that?"
Greg stopped dead.
"I have the cancelled checks, brother," Brandon said, stepping into his space. "When you told Mom that Dad’s firm went under in 2016 because of market shifts? That was a lie. You embezzled forty thousand dollars from the operating account to cover your bad margins on the day-trading market. Dad covered it up to keep you out of federal prison, and Mom blamed Dad for the financial ruin until the day he died."
Greg looked like he was about to vomit. "How... how do you know about that?"
"Because Dad left me his private ledgers," Brandon said coldly. "He left me everything, Greg. He knew what Mom was. He knew she spent thirty years turning you and Clara into entitled, spineless parasites who feed off whoever has the most leverage. For six years, I stayed quiet because I thought keeping the peace was what a good son was supposed to do."
Brandon walked over to the front door and held it wide open.
May you like
"The peace is over. If you or Mom contact Holly again, or if you post one single word about my wife on social media, those ledgers go directly to the state ethics board. Now get off my porch."
***
