Chapter 5 - THE CONFRONTATION
"Are you insane?" Dana gasped, slapping her hand against the screen. "You canceled my line without even telling me? I have clients! Tyler has apps for school!"
"Tyler is on summer break," Eleanor noted dryly. "And you have had six years to transfer that line into your own name, Dana. I reminded you every November. You ignored me because it was convenient."
"It's two hundred dollars a month, Mom! I don't have an extra two hundred dollars right now! I told you, my sales commission was low this quarter!"
"Then you will need to adjust your budget," Eleanor replied. Her voice was cool, steady, and terrifyingly calm. "Starting with your daily Starbucks visits and Tyler's gaming subscriptions."
Dana’s eyes narrowed. The panic began to give way to venom. "Is this about yesterday? Is this about that stupid iPad? Caleb got all dramatic and turned you against me, didn't he? I knew it! He’s always been jealous of me!"
Eleanor took a step closer to the screen door. Her eyes locked onto her daughter's with an intensity Dana had never seen before.
"Caleb did not say a word to me, Dana. You did this. You stood in a room full of people and watched your son rob your nephew on his birthday. You laughed. You validated his cruelty. You expected your brother to sacrifice his son's joy just so your child wouldn't have to suffer a single second of disappointment."
"He's eleven!" Dana yelled. "He made a mistake!"
"He didn't make a mistake. He executed a pattern he learned from you," Eleanor said. "You have been snatching things out of Caleb's hands your entire life, Dana. And I am the one who enabled it. I let you believe that being my daughter meant you were entitled to everything your brother worked for."
"I am your daughter!" Dana cried, tears finally breaking through her mascara. "You're supposed to support me!"
"Support you, yes. Enable your selfishness, no longer." Eleanor pulled a white envelope from her skirt pocket and slid it through the mail slot in the door. It fell onto the porch floor at Dana's feet.
"What is that?" Dana asked, looking down.
"That is a breakdown of the thirty-one thousand dollars I have paid on your behalf over the last eleven years," Eleanor said. "Along with a formal notification that as of 9:00 AM today, my bank accounts are no longer linked to your auto loan. If you miss your payment on the 15th, the bank will repossess your vehicle. I will not be there to stop them."
Dana stared at the envelope, then up at her mother. "You wouldn't do that. Mom, I'm your child!"
"And so is Caleb," Eleanor said quietly. "And Ben is my grandson. It is time I started treating all of my family with fairness—which means stopping you from leeching off the rest of us."
"I won't come back here!" Dana screamed, her voice cracking. "If you do this, you won't see Tyler! I won't bring him over for Sunday dinners! You'll be completely alone!"
It was the ultimate weapon, the thread Dana had pulled for a decade whenever Eleanor tried to set a boundary. The grandchildren.
Eleanor felt a sharp pang in her heart, but she didn't flinch.
"If you use your son as a bargaining chip, Dana, that is your moral failing, not mine," Eleanor said softly. "When Tyler wants to see his grandmother, he knows where I live. But you will not emotionally blackmail me ever again."
Eleanor stepped back and closed the heavy inner wooden door, turning the deadbolt with a firm click.
May you like
Outside, Dana screamed her mother's name, banged on the door three more times, and then, receiving no reply, stomped down the steps, her heels clicking furious rhythms against the concrete.
Eleanor walked back to the kitchen table. Her hands were shaking violently now. She sat down, put her face in her hands, and let out a long, shuddering breath. But she did not cry.
