Chapter 4 - The Midnight Confession
The kitchen was dark when I returned to the house on Lynen Street, save for the single amber bulb glowing above the stovetop.
Daniel was sitting on the floor in the living room, surrounded by cardboard moving boxes. He had packed four of them with books, Mabel’s board games, and the framed family photographs that had hung along the stairwell. He looked up at me as I closed the front door, his eyes bloodshot and swollen, smelling of sweat and cheap bourbon.
"He called me, Rosie," Daniel said, his voice a raspy whisper. "Dad called my cell phone twenty minutes ago. He was screaming so loud the speaker was buzzing. He fired me."
I set my purse on the console table and walked into the living room, looking down at the packed boxes.
"He fired you?" I asked.
"Effective immediately," Daniel choked out, burying his face in his hands. "He locked my computer access. He revoked my company truck. He said Harold is coming tomorrow morning with a flatbed to tow the crossover out of the driveway. He told me that if you show up in court tomorrow, he will make sure I never work in commercial construction in this state again."
He looked up at me, his face twisted in a mixture of agony and terror.
"Why didn't you tell me, Rosalie?" he sobbed. "Why didn't you tell me you were filing an answer? Why did you go into his office and humiliate him in front of the commissioners? You’ve ruined us! We don't have jobs! We don't have a house! We don't have a car! What are we supposed to do tomorrow when Harold shows up with that tow truck?"
I knelt down on the carpet in front of my husband. I didn't touch him, but I kept my eyes locked on his until he was forced to stop looking away.
"Daniel, listen to me very carefully," I said, every word measured and steel-plated. "Your father did not fire you because I went to his office. Your father fired you because the wall of lies he built around this family is falling down, and he wants you to take the fall for him."
"That’s not true! He’s my father!"
"He had you sign an illegal document that constitutes felony real estate fraud, Daniel! If that case had gone through uncontested, and the State Highway Division discovered that the power of attorney was invalid after they paid the two point four million dollars, who do you think was going to prison? Warren? Or the *Attorney-in-Fact* whose signature is on the option page?"
Daniel’s breath caught in his throat. His mouth fell slightly open.
"What... what two point four million?" he whispered.
"The state isn't paying $150,000 for Ridge Road, Daniel. They are paying two point four million dollars for the right-of-way. Your father lied to you. He used your terror, your insecurity, and your desperate need for his approval to get you to sign away my mother’s land for a five-thousand-dollar bone tossed under the table."
Daniel stared at me, the bourbon haze vanishing from his eyes, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated horror.
"Two point four million?" he repeated, his voice barely a squeak. "He told me... he told me the company was going bankrupt if we didn't show the land assets."
"He lied," I said. "He has been lying to you since you were twelve years old. He made you believe you couldn't survive without Baker Landworks. He made you believe that without his name on your paycheck, you were nothing. But you are Mabel’s father. You are Theo’s father. And tomorrow morning, you have to decide whether you are Warren Baker’s dog or my husband."
Daniel sat frozen on the floor. For three long minutes, the only sound in the house was the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway and the faint murmur of the children sleeping upstairs.
Then, slowly, Daniel reached out and picked up the photo frame he had placed inside the moving box. It was a picture of our wedding day under the big oak tree at Ridge Road. My mother was standing beside us, her face glowing with pride, her work-roughened hands resting gently on Daniel’s shoulders.
A deep, shuddering sob tore through Daniel’s chest. He didn't cry like a scared boy this time. He cried with the deep, gut-wrenching grief of a man realizing he had spent his entire life worshiping an altar built of garbage.
"What do you need me to do, Rosie?" he asked, looking up at me, his jaw clenching with something that looked, for the very first time in our marriage, like real spine.
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"Unpack the boxes," I said. "Go take a cold shower. And then sit down at the kitchen table and write out an affidavit detailing every single word Warren said to you in his office on March 14."
***
