“This is my family home!” Brenda shrieked, finding her voice, her face a mottled, furious red. “You can’t throw us out! This has been in the Miller family for generations!”
“Actually, I can,” I said, tapping the new folder. “This house is not your personal property. It is a corporate asset, held by Miller Capital Holdings as part of the acquisition. Your family sold it to my father’s company years ago to cover your gambling debts, Brenda. You’ve been living here as tenants, on my family’s sufferance, for the past fifteen years. Consider this your thirty-day eviction notice. I will be exercising my shareholder authority to sell it at the next board meeting. I believe the market is quite strong right now.”
I stood up, the chair scraping softly against the polished floor. I walked out of the dining room, leaving David and Brenda sitting amidst the chaos, surrounded by cold, congealing food and the smoldering ruins of his pathetic, short-lived career.
I paused in the grand entryway, under the gaze of the patriarchal portrait. I looked down at the divorce papers in my hand. “They said they were sick of my provincial face,” I whispered to myself. “They didn’t know I had purchased a mask, a costume, to hide myself for their comfort, to make them feel powerful and important. And tonight, they gave me the perfect reason to rip it off.”
I was no longer the scorned, provincial housewife. I was the Chairwoman. I had reclaimed my dignity, my identity, and my power with the simple, brutal, and undeniable truth. I walked toward the front door, the sound of my heels clicking on the marble floor the only sound in the suddenly silent, cavernous house. The fight was over. It was time to get back to work.
