Chapter 3 - Orange Juice and a Text Message
Jessica continued talking while I typed.
She complained about respect. About hierarchy. About how Mom would have been embarrassed by the way I let children “run wild” at parties. She said Braden had been humiliated because Tyler cut the cake first, as if Braden were not standing three feet behind her looking like he wanted the earth to swallow him.
I typed one line.
Jessica is using a child’s birthday party to publicly harass me and invoke trust entitlement again. Please review whether discretionary distributions should continue.
I sent it to Alden Pierce.
The trustee.
Then I slipped the phone back into my pocket.
The glass pitcher of orange juice on the patio table was still beaded with cold condensation. The ice had not even begun to melt.
Jessica folded her arms. “Well? Are you going to apologize?”
“No.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not apologizing for cutting my son’s birthday cake at his birthday party.”
She gave a sharp laugh for the audience. “You hear that? This is exactly what I mean. She thinks because she controls a few papers, she controls the family.”
I tilted my head.
“I texted Mr. Pierce.”
Jessica’s face changed so quickly several guests noticed.
“What?”
“I asked him to review your monthly allowance.”
The yard went still in a different way.
Before, people had been uncomfortable because they were witnessing cruelty. Now they were witnessing leverage shift direction.
Jessica’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Her phone vibrated.
Once.
Then again.
Then three more times in rapid succession.
She looked down.
The screen was unreadable from where I stood, but she knew the name. Her fingers tightened around the device until her knuckles whitened.
“You wouldn’t,” she whispered.
I looked at my son, then back at her.
“Watch me.”
Behind Jessica, Braden began to cry quietly.
May you like
Not because of money.
Because he understood, in the awful way children do, that his mother had used him as a shield in a fight he never wanted.
