Chapter 4 - THE ARRIVAL
At 3:45 p.m., the gravel in the driveway crunched.
Through the window, I watched Michael’s dark grey SUV slam to a halt. He didn't even turn off the engine before he threw the door open, lunging out into the damp afternoon air. He didn't look like the calm, collected professional he pretended to be at his office; his tie was gone, his collar was open, and his eyes were wide with a frantic, desperate energy.
He burst through the front door, his chest heaving.
"Emily!" he shouted, stepping into the foyer.
"I’m right here, Michael," I said, standing near the stairs.
Sarah immediately let out a loud, theatrical sob, throwing herself from the dining room chair and running toward her son. "Michael! Look at my face! She hit me! She threatened to put me on the street! She canceled my surgery!"
Michael wrapped his arms around his mother, his eyes locking onto mine with a fierce, burning hostility. "Is this what we are now, Emily? You’re hitting my mother? You’re throwing a seventy-year-old woman out in the rain?"
"Look at your daughter, Michael," I said, pointing to the bedroom door at the top of the stairs. "Go upstairs right now and look at Olivia’s face. If you can come back down those stairs and tell me your mother was 'correcting' her, then we have nothing left to talk about."
Michael hesitated. The anger in his eyes flickered, replaced for a brief second by a trace of guilt. He looked at Sarah, then back at the stairs.
"Michael, don't listen to her!" Sarah cried, clutching his arm. "She’s trying to manipulate you! She’s always hated me! She’s always hated Tyler! She wants us gone so she can have this whole place to herself!"
"Go look at her, Michael," I repeated, my voice steady. "Go."
With a low mutter, Michael pulled away from his mother and walked up the stairs.
The house went completely silent. Sarah stood in the foyer, her eyes darting toward the open suitcases, her breathing shallow and fast. She looked at me, hoping to find some trace of hesitation, some sign that I was bluffing.
She found nothing.
After five minutes, the sound of slow, heavy footsteps echoed from the stairs.
Michael came down. He wasn't looking at me; his eyes were fixed on the floorboards. His face was pale, his jaw clenched tight. He had seen the marks. He had seen his daughter’s swollen, bruised cheek.
"Well?" I asked.
"She... she has a mark," Michael muttered, his voice barely audible. He looked at his mother, his expression a mix of betrayal and confusion. "Mom... did you really hit her that hard? She’s just a baby."
"She was stealing, Michael!" Sarah yelled, her voice rising to a shriek as she realized her son’s support was wavering. "She was taking food from Tyler’s plate! You have to teach them early! If you don't, they grow up to be like her—disrespectful, ungrateful, thinking they run the world because they have a little money!"
Michael rubbed his face with both hands, his shoulders slumping. "Mom, you can't... you can't hit a two-year-old like that. That’s... that’s not correction."
"So you’re taking her side?" Sarah gasped, her hand flying to her chest as if she had been stabbed. "Your own mother? The woman who raised you? The woman who sacrificed everything so you could have a career?"
May you like
"Nobody is taking sides, Mom," Michael said, his voice flat and exhausted. He turned to me, his eyes pleading. "Emily, please. Let’s just calm down. We can put Mom in a hotel for a few days. We don't have to cancel the surgery. We can talk about this like adults."
"No," I said. "We can’t."
