Chapter 1 - The Feast on the Walnut Table
"Get back on the floor! That chair is for family, not for someone who can't even eat without making a mess!"
Those were the first words I heard when I unlocked the front door after nine months away.
My name is Audrey Fenwick. I was forty-two years old, an industrial refrigeration systems engineer, and I had just flown three thousand miles from Kodiak, Alaska, back to Richmond, Virginia. I stood in the foyer of the four-bedroom craftsman home I had purchased with my own savings three years before I ever met Reid Calloway.
My coat smelled like jet fuel and autumn rain. My keys hung frozen in my fingers.
Six people sat around my custom black walnut dining table.
My husband, Reid, was at the head of the table. He wore a crisp blue linen button-down I had never seen before. Arranged around him were his mother, Pamela; his father, Douglas; his sister, Brooke; his younger brother, Tyler; and Tyler’s wife, Kate.
In the center of the table lay a mountain of steamed lobster, colossal King crab legs, peeled jumbo shrimp, and a bed of crushed ice holding three dozen raw oysters. Four uncorked bottles of Napa Cabernet stood beside them, catching the warm glow of the chandelier.
Everyone looked radiant. Well-fed. At home.
And five feet away, on the cold ceramic kitchen tile, sat my mother.
Helen Fenwick. Sixty-nine years old. The woman who had worked twelve-hour shifts at a dry cleaner for twenty years after my father died to make sure my college tuition was paid on time.
Her swollen right knee was stretched out at an unnatural angle. Her bare feet were tucked under the hem of a faded, threadbare housecoat. In her trembling hands, she clutched a chipped ceramic bowl containing a grayish-brown, gelatinous mass of lentils.
The sour, fermented stench reached me instantly. I had spent fifteen years designing commercial cold-storage facilities. I knew the distinct, sharp sulfur of rotting legumes left to spoil in an unchilled container.
"Mom?" I whispered.
She flinched. She looked up, her skin sallow, dark purple half-moons bruised under her eyes. When she recognized me, there was no joy—only terror.
She immediately shoved the bowl behind her knee. "Audrey? Oh, sweetheart... you’re home early."
My suitcase hit the hardwood floor with a heavy thud. "What are you doing on the floor?"
Pamela let out a sharp, dramatic sigh from the head of the table, dabbing her lips with a linen napkin. "Audrey, please. She spilled her soup earlier. We're trying to teach her basic household manners. Nobody wants that kind of clumsiness around a three-hundred-dollar seafood spread."
"A mess?" My voice was dangerously flat.
"Audrey, don't start," Brooke muttered, cracking an oyster open. "She’s impossible to manage."
Reid finally set down his silver lobster pick. He didn't stand up. He didn't hug me. He cleared his throat and smiled weakly. "Baby, why didn't you call from the airport? You said your flight wasn't landing until tomorrow afternoon."
"I took the redeye through Chicago," I said, walking past the dining room table without looking at him. I dropped to my knees beside my mother. "Mom. Give me the bowl."
"It’s fine, Audrey. It’s nourishing. I’m just resting my leg..."
"Give it to me."
I pulled the chipped bowl from her shaking hands. A gray, rubbery skin had formed across the lentils. Little pockets of mold bubbled near the rim.
My throat constricted with rage. "How long has this been sitting out?"
Nobody spoke. Tyler took a sip of his wine. Douglas looked down at his plate.
I stood up and turned slowly toward my husband. "Reid. How is the lobster?"
"Audrey, don't do this," he said, shifting uncomfortably. "Your mother prefers simple food. Older people have delicate stomachs. You know that."
"She prefers spoiled garbage on the floor while your family feasts on four hundred dollars of shellfish?"
"This is my family’s Friday dinner!" Pamela snapped, slamming her glass down so hard the wine splashed. "Your mother has been ungrateful all month! We give her a roof, food, and a bed. She should be thanking us!"
"You give her a roof?" I repeated. The silence in the room became suffocating. "This house is mine. I bought it before I ever laid eyes on your son. The food on that table was bought with the forty-two hundred dollars I transferred into our household account every single month while I was freezing in Alaska."
I walked over to the dining table, holding the bowl of putrid lentils.
"Audrey," Reid warned, standing up. "Stop."
"You said this food was perfectly fine," I said.
Before Reid could grab my arm, I turned the bowl upside down directly over the lobster platter.
The gray, foul-smelling sludge slid across the red shells, pooled into the melted garlic butter, and coated the oysters.
Brooke shrieked. Kate jumped out of her chair with a gasp. Pamela surged to her feet, her face turning scarlet. "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?"
I didn't blink. I took both hands, grabbed the edge of the heavy walnut serving platter, and flipped it straight onto the center of the table.
Cracked shells, buttery sauce, wine glasses, and rotten lentils cascaded across the white linen and directly into Reid’s lap.
"There," I said, my voice ice. "Now you can all share what you gave my mother."
"You crazy bitch!" Pamela screamed.
"Get out of my face, Pamela," I whispered.
I pulled my phone from my pocket. In four quick swipes, I opened my banking app, navigated to my corporate primary account, and deactivated every single authorized user card issued under my credit line. Then I deleted the automated five-thousand-dollar monthly transfer set for Monday.
Reid’s phone vibrated instantly on the sideboard. Then Brooke’s phone chimed.
"What did you just do?" Reid choked out, staring at the screen.
"I just canceled your lobster budget," I said.
I turned my back on them and knelt back down by my mother. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably. As I helped her stand, she leaned her entire weight on me, gasping in agony from her swollen knee.
I guided her slowly down the hall toward the guest room.
As we reached the door, Helen grabbed my wrist with surprising strength. Tears spilled down her hollow cheeks.
"Audrey," she whispered, her voice cracking. "The caregiver you hired... Clara..."
"What about her, Mom?"
May you like
"She hasn't been here in six weeks. Reid fired her the day after you left for your last site rotation. And he told me if I ever told you, he would put me in a state home."
***
