Chapter 4 - The House of Paper
The room smelled of sour wine, stale chips, and the cold, metallic scent of ozone drifting in from an afternoon thunderstorm gathering over the lake.
Tyler, who had spent the last two years sharing Jessica’s TikToks and bragging to his college fraternity brothers that his cousin was an elite Manhattan influencer, slowly pushed himself off the sofa. He looked at the white Range Rover parked outside the window, then down at the papers scattered across the cedar floor.
“Wait,” Tyler stammered, his voice cracking with embarrassment. “The trip to Dubai? The penthouse in Soho? The VIP passes to Coachella you got me last summer?”
David didn't even look at Tyler. He just reached into the accordion folder and pulled out a stack of bright pink notices.
“Default judgments,” David said, tossing them onto the coffee table in front of Tyler. “Overdrawn credit lines under five different corporate aliases. Jessica hasn't paid rent on that Tribeca apartment in seven months. There is an eviction hearing scheduled for next Tuesday in Manhattan Civil Court. The Range Rover outside? It’s not leased under her name. She used Sarah’s maiden name and Jacob’s social security number to secure the financing through a predatory online lender.”
A cold, electric shock shot straight up my spine.
I scrambled to my feet, setting Jacob gently onto the wicker sofa. I didn't feel weak anymore. I didn't feel like the broken, exhausted single mother who had spent four years counting quarters for laundry machines.
I walked over to the table and snatched the pink document from David’s hand.
There it was.
*Jacob Miller. Age: 7. Primary Guarantor.*
The monthly payment was twelve hundred and eighty dollars. It was four months delinquent. There was an active repossession order attached to the VIN number of the white luxury vehicle parked forty feet from where my son was sitting with his broken toys.
“You used my son’s identity?”
The words came out in a low, guttural hiss that didn't sound human.
Jessica looked up at me from the floor. Her designer makeup was smeared into grotesque streaks across her cheeks. The haughty, untouchable glamour she projected to hundreds of thousands of strangers had completely dissolved, leaving only the terrified, parasitic core of what she had always been.
“Sarah, I... I was going to fix it,” she stammered, her voice shaking. “The algorithm changed! My engagement dropped after the platform update! My manager said if I didn't keep up appearances, the brand deals would dry up completely! I just needed to bridge the gap until the cosmetic line launched!”
“There is no cosmetic line, Jessica!” David roared.
He slammed his fist onto the table. The wedding ring jumped an inch into the air.
“I spoke to the manufacturing firm in New Jersey two days ago,” David continued, his voice unrelenting. “They sent a cease-and-desist letter six weeks ago because you never paid the formulation deposit! You took seventy-five thousand dollars in pre-orders from your followers on Instagram and used the money to fly your friends to Cabo!”
Uncle Mark stood up slowly, his face flushed deep red. “Susan... did you know about this? Did you know she was taking out loans in our family’s names?”
Susan backed away until her spine hit the kitchen cabinets. Her breathing was ragged, her fingers nervously twisting the gold cross at her neck. “Mark, it wasn't like that... she was under so much pressure... she was going to make millions! If one of her videos went viral enough, the licensing alone would have cleared everything!”
“You knew,” Mark snarled, his voice thick with betrayal. “You let her borrow twenty thousand dollars from my mother’s estate account last Thanksgiving! You told me it was for an emergency tax payment!”
“It was an emergency!” Susan cried out defensively. “They were going to freeze her bank accounts! She would have been publicly humiliated!”
“She’s a criminal!” I screamed at my mother.
I took three long strides toward Jessica. Jessica shrank back against the dishwasher, holding her arms up as if to shield herself from a physical blow.
I didn't touch her. I looked down at her with a disgust so profound it made my stomach churn.
“You sat at that table,” I said, pointing a shaking finger toward the broken plastic dinosaur, “and you looked at my seven-year-old child. You knew you had stolen his healthcare money. You knew you had put twelve hundred dollars a month of debt under his name before he could even tie his own shoes. And you still had the sickening, ungodly arrogance to break his nine-dollar toy just to make yourself feel superior.”
“I’m sorry!” Jessica wailed, curling into a fetal ball on the linoleum. “I’m sorry, Sarah! I’ll pay it back! I swear to God I’ll pay it all back!”
“With what?” David asked, his voice dead and cold.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone.
May you like
“You have seventy-three dollars in your checking account, Jessica. The repo truck for the Range Rover has been tracking your transponder since you crossed the state line. I gave the driver the gate code to the lake road twenty minutes ago.”
***
