Chapter 4 - Amanda's Cracking Veneer
Amanda’s spoon slipped from her hand, clattering against her porcelain plate with a jarring ring. The smug, condescending posture she had held since the moment Emily walked through the door evaporated, replaced by raw, defensive hostility.
"Well, that’s just unethical, isn't it?" Amanda snapped, her gaze flicking between me and Jason. "Sabotaging your own brother’s company out of spite? Is that how you operate, Brian? Using your little position to settle childhood grudges?"
"Sabotage requires deliberate interference with a viable option," Emily countered before I could even part my lips. Her voice was ice wrapped in velvet. "Jason’s firm proposed sub-standard galvanized conduit for an eighty-year-old municipal archive building. If Brian had approved that bid, he would have been committing regulatory negligence. My husband evaluates engineering blueprints, Amanda, not family charity cases."
"Don't talk to Amanda like that!" Jason barked, slamming his fist onto the table. Nathan whimpered slightly at the sudden noise, burying his little face into Emily’s chest. Emily gently patted his back, whispering soft reassurances while her gaze remained fixed on Jason, entirely unfazed by his outburst.
"Lower your voice, Jason," Dad said, his tone firmer than I had heard in twenty years. "You’re scaring your nephew."
"Nephew?" Jason spat, his eyes bulging. "You’re taking their side now, Dad? After they ambushed us? Look at them! Dressed up like they’re attending a charity gala, acting like they’re royalty! It’s all a show! Amanda and I just bought a four-bedroom townhouse in Oakridge! We actually live in the real world, paying a mortgage, building an honest reputation!"
Amanda seized on this, desperately trying to regain the upper hand. She straightened her posture, smoothing down her designer silk scarf. "That's right. Jason was just awarded the Regional Director title last quarter. We’re taking two weeks in Saint-Tropez this spring. It’s important to maintain a certain standard of living when you operate in corporate leadership. A quaint little farmhouse in the Berkshires sounds lovely for people who don't have to be connected to the center of power, but—"
"It’s not a farmhouse," Emily interrupted with an innocent tilt of her head. "It’s a sixty-acre self-sustaining estate. Brian built the solar grid and structural timber framing himself. Architectural Digest ran a spread on it in their September issue."
Amanda's mouth hung open. "Architectural... Digest?"
"Yes. It was featured on the cover under 'Modern Sustainable Sanctuaries.'" Emily unlocked her phone, opened a digital magazine app, and turned the device toward Amanda.
There on the glossy cover was our home—the soaring glass windows reflecting the autumn foliage, the polished stone fireplace, and in the foreground, Brian sitting on the mahogany deck with Nathan in his arms, laughing under the golden sun.
Amanda stared at the screen as if looking at a ghost. Her lips pressed into a thin, colorless line. For months, all through the family group chats that I rarely engaged with, Amanda had relentlessly posted updates about her kitchen countertop renovations, her lease upgrades, and the exclusive country club membership Jason had splurged on to prove they had "made it." Now, faced with effortless, undeniable excellence, the shallow foundation of her pride was crumbling in seconds.
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"You're lying," Amanda whispered, her voice tight and breathy. "This is a setup. You brought props. You're doing this just to humiliate us!"
"Humiliate you?" I asked, shaking my head with a bitter smile. "Amanda, I came here today for one reason only: because Dad called me on my birthday for the first time in six years and asked if I’d sit at his table for Thanksgiving. I brought my wife and my son to meet my family. Jason was the one who spent the first twenty minutes of dinner calling me an unemployed loser who couldn't find a woman to tolerate him. I didn't set this stage. Jason set it. You built the guillotine, and now you’re upset that his head is in it."
