Chapter 6 - The Escalation
The news hit County Road C like a artillery shell.
By four o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, Thomas Vance had received Attorney Henderson's formal legal notice at his Neillsville office. According to Henderson's paralegal, Vance spent less than ten minutes reviewing the marital property statutes before calling my mother in a state of absolute legal panic.
At 5:15 PM, as I was pulling into the driveway of my half-duplex with Noah and Sophie in the back seat, I saw a bright red Honda Civic parked on the street outside my home.
It was Jenna’s car.
As soon as my minivan came to a stop, the driver's side door flew open, and my younger sister marched across the snow-covered lawn, her long designer coat flapping in the freezing wind, her face twisted in rage.
"Noah, Sophie, stay in the car," I instructed calmly, setting the parking brake.
"Mom, is Aunt Jenna mad?" Sophie asked nervously from the back seat, clutching her backpack.
"She's just throwing a tantrum, sweetie," I said, unbuckling my seatbelt. "Lock the doors from the inside and don't come out until I tell you."
I stepped out of the minivan, closing the door behind me, locking it with the key fob.
"Claire!" Jenna screamed as she reached the driveway, her voice high and breathless. "Have you completely lost your mind?! Mom is in the kitchen at the farm having a full-blown panic attack! Her blood pressure is through the roof!"
I stood by the driver's side door, my hands tucked into the pockets of my winter coat, watching her with absolute composure. "Hello, Jenna."
"Don't 'hello Jenna' me!" she yelled, stepping up into my space. "What is this insane lawyer letter Mom just got from Thomas Vance? You're suing us for ninety-six thousand dollars?! You're trying to take the farm away from Mom?!"
"I'm not trying to take anything, Jenna," I replied smoothly. "I simply informed Vance that I am not legally responsible for your property taxes, and that if Mom attempts to pursue me for money I don't owe, my lawyer will recover the funds she fraudulently took from my marriage ten years ago."
"Fraudulently?!" Jenna shrieked, waving her manicured hands in the air. "She’s your mother, Claire! That money was to save our childhood home! The home where you grew up!"
"The home where you live for free," I corrected her coldly. "While driving a forty-thousand-dollar car and spending your weekends in Chicago while I pay the property taxes."
Jenna flinched, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. "I... I work at the salon! I pay for my own expenses!"
"You don't pay rent, Jenna," I said, stepping closer to her until she was forced to take a step back onto the slippery grass. "You don't pay property taxes. You don't pay building insurance. For ten years, you've lived off my labor while treating me like the hired help. And on Christmas Day, you sat at that table and laughed while Mom left my kids sitting in the hallway."
Jenna’s face turned bright red, her eyes darting toward the minivan where Noah and Sophie were watching through the frosted glass.
"That was a mistake!" Jenna stammered, her voice losing its aggressive edge. "Mom told me you were busy! She said you had shift work at the lumber yard and that you didn't want to come out until late!"
"Don't lie to me, Jenna," I said, my voice dropping into a register so dark and cold that my sister actually shivered. "I heard you laughing in the background when Mom told me you had already eaten. You knew exactly what you were doing. You wanted to make sure Noah and Sophie knew their place."
"Claire... please," Jenna’s voice suddenly faltered, turning desperate. "Vance told Mom that if we don't pay the five thousand two hundred dollars to the county by Friday noon, and if your lawyer files that lawsuit, the bank will freeze the farm’s equity line. We don't have ninety-six thousand dollars! We'll lose the house!"
"Then I suggest you take that brand-new Honda Civic down to the dealership tomorrow morning and trade it in for a ten-year-old sedan," I told her. "And then go tell Mom to sell her antique glass collection. Because at twelve o'clock on Friday, if the county taxes aren't paid, my lawyer files the paperwork with the Wood County Clerk."
"You wouldn't do that to your own family," Jenna whispered, staring at me with genuine horror. "Dad would be disgusted with you."
"Don't you dare bring Dad into this," I snapped, pointing a finger directly at her chest. "Dad spent his whole life working in a freezing cheese plant to keep a roof over our heads, while you and Mom spent every dime he made. Dad would be proud that I finally stopped letting you bleed me dry."
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I turned my back on her, unlocked the minivan, and helped Noah and Sophie out of the back seat.
"Get out of my driveway, Jenna," I said without looking back as I led my children up the porch steps. "And tell Mom she has forty-eight hours."
