Chapter 6 - THE FALL OF THE GOLDEN CHILD
Detective Miller’s boots make a steady, heavy rhythm against the pine floorboards.
He is fifty, with thinning gray hair, a weathered jaw, and the cynical, exhausted demeanor of a Chicago detective who has seen every variety of human vanity curdle into violence. He walks past the overturned ring light, past the spilled potting soil, and stops three feet from where Calliope is huddled against the brick wall.
“Calliope Vance-Morrison?” he asks.
“This is a mistake,” Calliope gasps. She pulls her knees to her chest, trying to make herself look small, fragile, helpless—the delicate wellness creator besieged by bullies. “My sister has an obsession with me. She’s mentally unstable. She brought these documents to terrorize us. She’s using her company’s money to fabricate—”
“Stand up, ma'am,” Detective Miller says. His voice has no anger in it, only the flat, crushing boredom of the law.
“Dad!” Calliope wails, looking toward Alaric. “Do something! Call Robert! Call the mayor’s office! You know people!”
Alaric doesn't look at her. His hands remain pressed against his temples. “Calliope... please. Just... stop talking.”
“Stand up, ma'am, or we will assist you,” the second officer, a broad-shouldered woman with a sidearm resting against her hip, says firmly.
Calliope doesn't stand. She clings to the molding of the baseboard, her French-manicured nails clawing at the pine. The two officers step forward, reach beneath her arms, and lift her with effortless efficiency.
“You're hurting me!” she shrieks. “Look at my wrists! I have a connective tissue disorder! This is police brutality! Someone film this! Eloen, tell them to stop!”
The female officer pivots Calliope smoothly toward the brick wall, pushes her chest against the mortar, and pulls her arms behind her back.
*Click. Snap.*
The cold steel of the peerless handcuffs bites around Calliope’s wrists.
The sound is small, but in the echoing expanse of the 4,500-square-foot loft, it sounds like an iron portcullis slamming shut.
“Calliope Vance-Morrison, you are under arrest for aggravated battery causing great bodily harm under 720 ILCS 5/12-3.05, a Class 3 felony,” Detective Miller recites from memory, his hands resting on his utility belt. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
“I didn't do it!” Calliope screams against the brick. Her makeup is smearing against the rough masonry. Her immaculate cashmere lounge set is covered in dust and potting soil. “It was a joke! The glass slipped! She lunged at me!”
Detective Miller pulls a portable tablet from his leather case, turns it toward my parents, and taps the screen.
It is the botanical garden footage, running at half speed.
In high definition, there is no ambiguity. The camera angle is forty-five degrees from above, perfectly capturing Calliope’s face. You can see the deliberate, predatory focus in her eyes as she reaches out. You can see her fingers lock around my wrist. You can see her pin my hand against the stone ledge of the planter. And you can see her bring the thick, faceted crystal down with the precise, downward force of a hammer striking an anvil.
Then, you can see her lips move: *“Ugly bride.”*
Detective Miller looks at Alaric. “Is that your daughter, sir?”
Alaric closes his eyes. A single tear tracks down the deep, dry crevice of his cheek. He nods once, microscopic, defeated.
“Yes,” Alaric whispers.
“Alaric, no!” Rowena screams, lunging off the couch. “Don't say that! They'll put her in prison! She’s sensitive! She can't survive in a jail!”
The female officer turns Calliope around and begins walking her toward the elevator. Calliope is thrashing now, her heels dragging against the wood, her face a twisted, dripping mask of mascara, snot, and rage.
“I hate you!” she shrieks, turning her head back toward me as the elevator gates approach. “I hate you, Eloen! You ruined my life! You’ve always been jealous of me! You’re ugly! You’re an ugly, miserable, unlovable freak! Lochlan will leave you! Nobody stays with you! You hear me? Nobody!”
The brass elevator gates rattle open. The officers guide her inside.
The iron lattice slides shut, cutting her image into thin, vertical strips.
The motor hums. The cables creak. The elevator descends, carrying Calliope’s screaming voice down through the floorboards until it is swallowed by the cold concrete of the basement intake.
Then, there is only the wind howling against the fourth-floor windows.
Lochlan walks down the spiral staircase from the mezzanine. He doesn't look at my parents. He walks straight to my side, takes my uninjured right hand in both of his, and brings it to his lips. His hands are warm, solid, real.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“Yes,” I say. And for the first time in four days, the word is not a lie.
Rowena is still on the floor by the sofa, weeping hysterically, her designer bag tipped over, credit cards and lipsticks scattered across the floor like the debris of a shipwreck.
Alaric slowly walks over to where I am standing. He stops three feet away. His eyes are red-rimmed, bloodshot, desperate.
“Eloen,” he says, his voice a ragged whisper. “The criminal charge... if she’s convicted of a Class 3 felony, she’ll do two to five years. She’ll never work again. Her life is over.”
“Her life as a fraud is over, Dad,” I reply. “Her life as an accountable citizen is just beginning.”
“And the lease?” he croaks, his hands trembling at his sides. “The default judgment? Eloen... if you enforce that lien against the house... your mother and I have nothing. We have thirty thousand dollars in my 401(k). That’s all. I spent everything else keeping Calliope afloat. The car leases. The rent. The followers she bought online... I spent our entire retirement.”
I look at my father.
I look at the man who walked me down the aisle four days ago with a distant, bored expression, who spent the rehearsal dinner bragging about Calliope’s skincare deal while my future husband’s family sat in bewildered silence.
“Why did you do it, Dad?” I ask. The question isn't angry. It’s an honest, academic inquiry. “I worked seventy hours a week at that diner to pay my tuition. I ate instant ramen for three years. I bought my first suit at a thrift store on Milwaukee Avenue. You never gave me a dollar. You never called to ask if I had rent. Why did she get everything?”
Alaric’s shoulders shake. He looks away, out the massive arched windows toward the cold gray towers of the Loop.
“Because Calliope was beautiful,” he whispers.
The confession is so raw, so pathetically small, that it feels like an insult to the vastness of the room.
“She looked like your mother’s sister,” he mutters, staring at his shoes. “She looked like someone who was meant to be admired. We thought... we thought she was going to be famous. We thought if we invested in her, she would elevate the whole family. And you... Eloen, you were so quiet. You were so self-contained. You never seemed to need us.”
“I had a broken arm, Dad,” I say.
He flinches as if I had struck him.
“I was eight years old,” I whisper. “My bone was snapped in two. I needed you. You just didn't want to look at something that wasn't pretty.”
I take a step back, slipping my hand into Lochlan’s.
“The lien stands, Dad. By five o'clock tomorrow, Sterling-Vance’s legal counsel will file the default judgment with the Cook County Recorder of Deeds. You have thirty days to secure private financing to satisfy the debt, or the property in Oak Brook will be listed for judicial auction.”
“Eloen... please...” Rowena wails from the floor.
“Do not call me,” I say, turning toward the staircase. “Do not text my husband. If you set foot on our property in Lincoln Park, Lochlan will have you removed for criminal trespass. We are finished.”
We walk toward the stairs. We don't take the brass elevator; we take the iron staircase, our boots ringing against the metal steps as we descend.
May you like
Behind us, in the vast, empty, ruined Temple of Light, the only sound left is my mother weeping into the dirt of an overturned plant, and my father standing silent in the ruins of the idol he spent thirty years building out of sand.
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