Chapter 6 - The Ultimatum
Jessica was trembling now, her composure completely shattered. The glass in her hand slipped, clattering against the edge of the wooden table, spilling the last few drops of pinot noir onto her own lap. She didn't even notice.
"You can't do this!" she shrieked, jumping to her feet, her voice cracking with hysteria. "It's illegal! You're senile! You're giving away a multi-million-dollar property to a child because of a spilled glass of wine? Are you out of your mind? It was just a joke! Kids need thicker skin!"
My father slowly closed the leather ledger. The heavy thud of the cover snapping shut sounded like a judge’s gavel coming down in a courtroom.
"It wasn't a joke, Jessica," my father said, standing up to his full height, towering over her despite his age. "Cruelty disguised as a joke is still just cruelty. And in my experience as an engineer, if a structure has a foundational flaw—if the pillars are rotten and malicious from the ground up—you don't patch it up with paint. You tear it down, and you build over it."
He looked around the table at the stunned, horrified faces of my relatives.
"You all have thirty minutes," my father continued, his voice absolute and unyielding. "Pack your bags. Load your cars. If you are still on this property when the grandfather clock in the hall strikes six, I won't just have Sarah call the sheriff for trespassing—I’ll personally walk out here with a chainsaw and cut down every single vehicle parked in my driveway."
Nobody moved. For a second, they sat paralyzed, looking from my father to the open ledger, trying to calculate if he was bluffing.
They didn't know him like I did. My father never bluffed. When he engineered a bridge, he tested every bolt three times. When he made a decision, it was cast in structural steel.
Uncle Mark was the first to break. He cursed under his breath, shoved his chair back so hard it tipped over backward onto the floor, and stomped toward the front door without a word. Brian scrambled after his father, grabbing his jacket off the coat rack in a blind panic.
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Mother looked at my father with tears streaming down her face, waiting for him to soften, waiting for him to say it was all a sick test. But my father simply turned his back to her, walking over to the window to look out at the dark waters of the lake.
Mother let out a sob, turned on her heel, and hurried down the hallway toward the master bedroom to pack her things.
