Chapter 4 - The Confrontation
“Don’t move an inch, Brenda,” I said, my voice dropping into a deadly, quiet register that made her freeze instantly.
I set my mother down gently on one of the cushioned kitchen chairs, wrapping Dad’s woolen coat around her shoulders, before turning to face my sister.
Brenda backed up against the front door, her cheeks streaked with tears, her eyes darting frantically toward the driveway outside.
“Shawn, please!” she sobbed. “You don't understand! Greg owes seventy thousand dollars to some very dangerous men from Philadelphia! They threatened to burn his trucks! They threatened to hurt me!”
“So you locked our seventy-year-old parents in an unheated cellar in the middle of winter?!” I stepped toward her, stopping three feet away, towering over her like a thundercloud. “You let them freeze on two inches of concrete so you could steal their home?!”
“You were never here!” Brenda suddenly screamed back, her guilt turning into bitter, venomous rage. “You left twelve years ago! You lived in your big city, driving nice cars, making millions while I was stuck here taking care of them!”
“I sent two thousand dollars every single month!” I roared. “Where did that money go, Brenda?!”
“That wasn't enough!” she yelled. “Greg needed the house deed! We were going to transfer the title, take out a second mortgage, pay off his debt, and then let Mom and Dad move back up into the bedrooms!”
“They almost died down there!” I shouted, pointing toward the open pantry door. “Look at Mom! She doesn't even know what day it is!”
Brenda looked past me at our mother, who sat at the table, staring vacantly at the salt shaker, shivering beneath Dad's coat. A flash of genuine shame passed over Brenda's face, but before she could speak, the crunch of heavy tires sounded outside in the gravel driveway.
Headlights flashed through the kitchen window.
Brenda’s eyes widened in sheer terror. “Greg is back,” she whispered.
The front door unlocked from the outside, swinging open.
A tall, heavy-set man in a muddy work jacket walked into the entryway, carrying a cardboard box filled with fast-food bags.
Greg Vance.
May you like
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me standing in the hallway, then looked past me to see my father sitting at the kitchen table.
“What the hell is going on here?” Greg demanded, his face turning dark. He looked at Brenda. “Why are they out of the basement?”
