Chapter 6 - Coral's Guilt
By two in the afternoon, the mountain was quiet again.
The trucks were parked at my parents’ house, Natalie’s desk safely installed in Howard’s workshop where he could repair the pried drawer. Ivy was upstairs taking an exhausted, deep nap in the guest room, surrounded by stuffed animals and wrapped in Natalie’s quilt.
I was sitting on the back porch of the ranch house, holding one of Ivy’s cedar mugs filled with black coffee, watching the shadows lengthen across the snow-covered pasture.
My phone chimed with a text message.
It wasn't Marlene, and it wasn't Marcus.
The text was from a number I had saved as *Coral - Mobile*:
> *"Peter? Are you there? Please don't tell Mom I’m texting you."*
I stared at the screen for a moment, my chest aching. Coral was twelve years old. She was haughty sometimes, mimicking her mother’s vanity and cruelty when she felt insecure, but she was still a child. She had lost her biological father to an ugly custody battle when she was six, and for two years, I had helped her with her science fair projects, taught her how to ride a horse without gripping the reins too tightly, and held her hand when she had her appendix removed last winter.
I typed back:
> *"I'm here, Coral. Are you safe?"*
Three dots appeared, dancing for nearly two minutes. Then:
> *"We're at Grandma Evelyn's condo. Mom is screaming at Uncle Marcus. Everyone is fighting. Mom told me that you hate me and Forrest now because of what happened."*
I closed my eyes, exhaling a long, frosty breath into the mountain air.
> *"Coral, look at me. Read these words very carefully. I do not hate you. I do not hate Forrest. What your mother did this morning was wrong, but it was not your fault. You did not lock the door. You did not break Natalie’s things. You are twelve years old, and you are not responsible for the choices your mother makes."*
Another long pause.
> *"I have something. On my phone. Mom made me record it three days ago, but I didn't want to. She said if I told anyone, she would take away my phone and send me to live with my dad in Texas."*
My thumb hovered over the glass.
> *"What is it, Coral?"*
An audio file popped up in the chat window: `Recording_Dec22_2024.m4a`.
I tapped the screen, raising the phone to my ear.
The audio was muffled, recorded from inside a jacket pocket or under a sofa cushion.
Marlene’s voice, sharp and conspiratorial, came through clearly:
*"...I don't care if Peter promised her the morning shift, Evelyn. This is the last Christmas I spend playing second fiddle to a ghost. I’m having the locks on the living room double doors keyed to a deadbolt tomorrow afternoon. Peter won't get off his shift until seven-thirty at the earliest. We do our family Christmas at six. By the time he walks through that door, Coral and Forrest will have opened everything, the mess will be made, and Ivy will understand her place in this house once and for all."*
Evelyn’s dry, raspy voice answered:
*"Just make sure you don't leave marks, Marlene. Emotional neglect is impossible to prove in a custody hearing, but physical restraint gets the court involved."*
*"I'm not stupid, Mother. I'll just tell her she has to wait her turn. And when Peter throws a tantrum, I'll post the video Marcus told me to stage. By the time we file for temporary support, his reputation at the hospital will be so compromised he'll settle for whatever I ask for just to keep his name out of the papers. The trust money is already moving into the Steamboat LLC. In six months, we'll have enough leverage to buy him out of the house completely."*
The recording clicked off.
I sat on the porch, the freezing wind blowing against my face, feeling a chill that went straight into my bones.
It wasn't an impulse. It wasn't an emotional outburst from a stressed stepmother.
It was an orchestrated, premeditated campaign of psychological abuse and financial grand larceny, designed to break a child's spirit, drive me out of my own home, and liquidate my late wife’s estate to fund their real estate schemes.
My phone chimed again.
> *"Coral: I'm sorry, Peter. I’m so sorry. I should have unlocked the door when she knocked. I looked at her through the glass and I was too scared of Mom to turn the knob. Please tell Ivy I'm sorry."*
I felt a tear slip down my cheek, freezing instantly against my stubble.
I typed back:
> *"Coral, you did the right thing by sending me this. You are brave. You didn't do anything wrong this morning. I will make sure Ivy knows that. Be safe, take care of your brother, and don't let anyone see this text thread. Delete it now."*
> *"Coral: Okay. I love you, Peter."*
> *"I love you too, kiddo. Always."*
I stood up, walked into the house, and laid the phone on the kitchen table in front of my sister Andi.
"Call Diane Vance," I said.
Andi looked up from her mug, her eyebrows raising. Diane Vance was Marcus and Marlene’s first cousin—and the top matrimonial and forensic divorce attorney in Denver, who had been estranged from Evelyn’s side of the family for a decade after they tried to cheat her out of her grandfather's inheritance.
"Diane?" Andi smiled, a slow, predatory grin spreading across her face. "Oh, Peter. You're not just divorcing her. You're going to erase her."
May you like
"Call her," I said. "Tell her I have eighty-four thousand dollars in fraudulent wire transfers, a prenuptial agreement with an unconscionability clause, and an audio file that will end Marcus Vance's legal career before the new year."
***
