Chapter 6 - The Suburbs and the Sinking Ship
The CTA Blue Line train smelled like stale coffee, wet wool, and thirty years of deferred municipal maintenance. For Olivia Moretti, sitting on one of its hard plastic benches with her designer handbag clutched to her chest like a shield against an invading army, it smelled like absolute humiliation.
"I cannot believe we are on public transportation," Olivia hissed, leaning over to nudge her son, who sat beside her staring blankly at the scratched Plexiglas window. "Daniel, do something. Call her lawyer. Tell her we’ll press charges for harassment. Tell her we’ll—we’ll call the police!"
Daniel didn't move. He hadn't spoken a single word since they were physically ejected from the lobby of Sarah’s corporate headquarters by two security guards who treated them with the polite, indifferent efficiency of airport customs officers. His designer suit felt heavy and oppressive; his shoes, which had cost more than a month of groceries for an average family, pinched his feet as if they shared his sudden, profound misery.
"Mom, shut up," Daniel muttered finally, his voice flat and dead. "The police aren't going to do anything. She legally froze the accounts. The house in Naperville has a lien slapped across the title deed, and our credit cards are blacklisted nationwide. We are legally, financially, and publicly dead."
Ashley, sitting across the aisle with her arms tightly crossed over her chest, let out a loud, theatrical sigh that earned her a dirty look from an old man reading a newspaper.
"This is all Sarah's fault," Ashley whined, pulling out her phone for the hundredth time that hour, only to stare once more at the blank, frozen banking screen. "How is it legal for her to just cut us off like that? We helped! We watched Emma for ten minutes while she was working!"
"Ten minutes?" Olivia scoffed, her voice rising in pitch. "We raised that ungrateful child’s standard of living for three years! We gave her a family! And now she treats us like common criminals over a tiny little misunderstanding involving a balcony door and a piece of bread!"
The old man across the aisle lowered his newspaper, looked Olivia dead in the eye, and said, "Lady, if you locked a kid out on a balcony in October while you ate lobster, you got off cheap."
Ashley opened her mouth to snap back, but a sharp look from her mother silenced her.
They stepped off the train at the Naperville station into a cold, biting afternoon drizzle. The walk from the station to their suburban home felt three times longer than usual. When they finally turned the corner onto their familiar residential street, Olivia stopped dead in her tracks.
Parked in the driveway of their brick colonial home was a large, utilitarian tow truck bearing the logo of a commercial asset-recovery firm. Two men in high-visibility vests were currently unbolting Daniel’s secondary sports coupe from the trailer hitch, while a third man was sticking a bright orange legal notice across the front storm door.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" Olivia shrieked, breaking into a clumsy run down the wet driveway, her heels clicking frantically against the concrete. "That car belongs to my son! Get away from that property!"
The lead recovery agent didn't even look up from his clipboard. He tore a carbon copy off his pad and handed it to Olivia as she rushed up.
"Bank levy, ma'am," the agent said smoothly. "Foreclosure and asset-seizure proceedings initiated by Vane & Sterling Family Law on behalf of Sarah Hayes-Moretti. You have forty-eight hours to clear your personal belongings out of the premises before the locks are officially changed by court order."
"Forty-eight hours?!" Olivia gasped, clutching her chest as if she truly were about to have a heart attack. "You can't do this! We have nowhere to go! My husband’s medications are inside!"
May you like
"Better call a moving van, then," the agent replied coldly, climbing back into the cab of his truck.
As the tow truck rumbled away down the street, dragging Daniel’s car behind it, the three of them stood in the freezing drizzle staring at the orange notice plastered across their front door. The illusion was gone. The parasite host had detached, and the cold reality of their own incompetence rushed in to fill the void.
