Chapter 2 - The Guests of Dishonor
The morning dragged on with an agonizing slowness,
each minute felt like an hour as I sat in the kitchen,
listening to the rhythmic sound of my father breathing in the next room.
He sat perfectly still in the shadows,
a predator waiting for the prey to walk into the trap.
At exactly 12:02 p.m.,
the sound of Randy’s car pulled into the gravel driveway.
I heard the doors click,
and then the sound of his mother,
Eden,
her high-pitched laughter cutting through the air like a knife.
She was talking about the renovations she wanted to make to my townhouse once I was "convinced" to move.
"It just needs more light,
Randy,"
she chirped,
"and we can turn that office of hers into a lovely sunroom."
"She won't need an office once she's busy taking care of me."
The front door opened,
and I heard Randy's confident voice,
booming with the arrogance of a man who thought he owned the world.
"Joanna!
We're here!"
"I hope that lunch is ready and you're wearing that smile I asked for!"
They stepped into the foyer,
and then they suddenly stopped,
the laughter dying in their throats as if someone had cut the power.
The makeup bag was still visible through the open bedroom door,
unopened.
My suitcase was nowhere to be seen.
And there,
sitting calmly in the living room,
was my father.
He didn't stand up,
he simply looked at them,
his presence filling the space until the air felt heavy and suffocating.
Randy froze,
his hand still on the door handle,
his face turning a sickly shade of gray as he looked at the man he had never met but instinctively feared.
"Who...
who are you?"
Randy stammered,
his bravado evaporating in a single breath.
Eden clutched her pearls,
her eyes darting around the room,
looking for me,
looking for an escape.
"I'm the man who's going to explain to you exactly how the rest of your life is going to go,"
my father said,
his voice as cold as a mountain stream.
I stepped out of the kitchen then,
leaning against the doorframe,
my face swollen and my lip split,
letting them see the reality of what they had done.
Eden gasped,
not out of sympathy,
but out of the terror of being caught.
"Joanna,
dear,"
she started,
her voice trembling,
"what on earth happened to your face?"
I looked at her,
my eyes hard and unyielding.
"Randy happened,
Eden,"
I said,
"and so did you."
"But the lunch you were expecting is canceled."
May you like
"In its place,"
"we're going to have a very long conversation about the law."
