Chapter 7 - Lorraine and Tabitha Turn on Each Other
By Tuesday evening, the pressure inside Lorraine Miller’s modest, three-bedroom ranch-style home in Glendale had reached critical mass.
The house was not built for six people. Tabitha’s three children had completely trashed the living room, smearing juice across the faux-suede couch and leaving plastic toys strewn across every inch of carpet. Tabitha was locked in the spare bathroom, sobbing hysterically through the door because her car had been repossessed from the driveway two hours earlier by a flatbed truck.
Garrett was sitting on the edge of the twin bed in his childhood bedroom, staring at the wall in a catatonic daze. His phone was dead, his career was over, his bank balance stood at precisely forty-seven dollars, and the reality of his complete financial annihilation had finally penetrated his thick skull.
In the kitchen, Lorraine was pacing like a caged badger, clutching a formal legal document that had been delivered by a courier an hour prior.
It was an official notice from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office notifying her that an emergency subpoena had been issued for her financial records, specifically targeting seventy-eight thousand dollars in suspicious electronic transfers received from Avery Miller’s business accounts over the past twenty-four months.
“This is your fault!” Lorraine screamed, kicking the bathroom door where Tabitha was hiding. “You had to go to Nordstrom! You had to try and spend four thousand dollars on clothes when you knew the girl was watching the accounts!”
The bathroom door flew open. Tabitha stood there, her eyes red, her mascara smeared across her cheeks like greasepaint.
“My fault?” Tabitha shrieked. “*My* fault, Mom? You were the one who told Garrett to dump the bucket of water on her! You were the one who said Avery was weak and would roll over if he acted like a real man! You told him she’d cook us breakfast and give us the third bedroom!”
“Because he’s her husband!” Lorraine yelled back, her voice cracking with fury. “A husband is supposed to rule his house! He’s thirty-two years old and he couldn't even make that skinny little designer submit to him! He’s useless! Just like his father was!”
From down the hallway, Garrett’s bedroom door swung open.
Garrett stood in the frame, his face sunken, dark purple bruises of exhaustion ringing his eyes. He looked at his mother—the woman whose approval he had spent his entire life chasing, the woman whose poisonous whisper had convinced him to throw away a brilliant, wealthy, stunning wife who had given him everything.
“What did you just say?” Garrett asked, his voice dead and hollow.
Lorraine turned on him, her maternal facade completely stripped away, revealing the raw, bitter narcissism beneath.
“You heard me! You’re a failure, Garrett! You had a woman with a million-dollar condo and an endless line of credit, and you let her kick you out on the street in twenty minutes! And now she’s suing *me*! She’s trying to take my house! What kind of son lets his ex-wife sue his own mother?”
“You told me she wouldn't do anything,” Garrett whispered, stepping into the hallway. “You swore to me she was scared of being alone. You said if I put my foot down on her birthday, she would realize I was the boss. You made me dump that water on her!”
“I didn't make you do anything!” Lorraine spat, backing into the kitchen counter. “You’re a grown man! You did it because you’re stupid! And now Tabitha’s car is gone, my bank accounts are frozen, and they’re threatening to audit my taxes! You fix this, Garrett! You go down to that condo, you get on your knees, you cry, you apologize, and you get her to drop these lawsuits!”
“I can’t,” Garrett said, his hands beginning to shake uncontrollably. “There’s an order of protection, Mom. If I go within five hundred yards of her, I go to jail. Real jail.”
“Then Tabitha will go!” Lorraine yelled, pointing a manicured, trembling finger at her daughter. “Tabitha will take the kids down there! Avery won't call the police on three little children!”
“Are you insane?” Tabitha screamed back. “She canceled my card at the register! She had two armed guards throw us out of the lobby! She doesn't care about my kids, Mom! She hates us! And she has the best lawyer in the state! Marcus Vance is going to put us in prison for identity theft because *you* made me use her social security number to open that credit card last year!”
Garrett froze. He slowly turned his head toward Tabitha.
“You... you used Avery’s social security number?” he asked, the horror dawning in his voice.
Tabitha clamped her hand over her mouth, realizing what she had just blurted out.
“Mom told me to!” Tabitha sobbed, pointing frantically at Lorraine. “She said Avery had an eight-hundred credit score and wouldn't notice a five-thousand-dollar balance on an obscure department store card! Mom made me do it!”
“You treacherous little liar!” Lorraine lunged forward, grabbing Tabitha by the hair.
The two women tumbled to the kitchen floor in an explosion of screams, curses, and flying fingernails, knocking over the kitchen table and sending Lorraine’s pill bottles scattering across the linoleum like dice.
Garrett stood over them, listening to the shrieks of his mother and sister, the wailing of Tabitha’s children from the living room, and the violent, ugly reality of the family he had chosen over Avery.
May you like
He walked out the front door, sat on the curb beside the empty spot where his sister’s car used to be, buried his face in his hands, and finally wept.
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