Chapter 3 - The Fractured Family
Lucas didn’t even take off his jacket. He stood in the entryway, towering over his mother and sister, his breathing heavy. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Kimberly was the first to rush toward him, flashing her most practiced, pathetic smile, ready to play the victim card she had used successfully her entire life.
“Lucas! Thank goodness you’re here,” Kimberly cried, dabbing at dry eyes. “Your ungrateful wife is threatening us! We just needed a temporary place for the new baby, and instead of welcoming us with open arms, she’s acting like a tyrant. Tell her to calm down!”
Evelyn nodded approvingly, stepping up beside her daughter. “Listen to your sister, Lucas. Family is everything. You worked hard for this apartment, but Elena acts like she rules the world. Put your wife in her place and tell her Kimberly is staying in that room.”
They both stared at Lucas, fully expecting him to nod, sigh, and do what he had done for years: placate them to keep the peace. They expected him to tell me to apologize and accommodate Kimberly’s endless demands.
Instead, Lucas looked at them with a cold, disgusted stare that I had rarely seen on his face.
“Mom,” Lucas said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. “Get your things out of my daughter’s room right now.”
Kimberly blinked, her fake tears drying up instantly. “What? Lucas, I just said—”
“I heard what you said,” Lucas interrupted, raising his voice just enough to cut her off. “You broke into my home while my wife was at work, you terrified my daughter, you threw her belongings into the hallway like garbage, and you acted like you own a place you haven’t contributed a single dime to.”
Evelyn stepped forward, her face flushing with sudden rage and disbelief. “How dare you speak to your sister that way! After everything I sacrificed for you? That apartment belongs to you, Lucas! And what’s yours is your family’s!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Mom,” Lucas said, his jaw tightening. “It doesn’t belong to me.”
Kimberly let out a nervous, high-pitched giggle. “Stop joking, Lucas. Everyone knows you bought this place when you got promoted five years ago.”
“No,” Lucas corrected, turning his head to look directly at me as a soft, reassuring smile touched his lips. “I didn’t buy it. I couldn’t have afforded a broom closet in Silver Creek five years ago, let alone a three-bedroom luxury apartment. You all seem to forget who actually pays the mortgage and whose name is primary on the deed.”
Evelyn scoffed, waving her hand dismissively. “Oh, please. Elena makes a decent salary as an accountant, but everyone knows the man of the house provides the foundation—”
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“Elena bought this apartment,” Lucas declared loudly, cutting through his mother’s rambling. The words dropped into the room like a heavy iron weight.
Silence descended upon the living room. Kimberly stopped rubbing her stomach. Evelyn’s mouth hung open, her eyes darting between her son and me, utterly unable to process what she had just heard.
