Chapter 7 - Linda's Secret Debt
At 7:00 a.m. the following morning, the front door did not ring.
Instead, a frantic knocking came at our back kitchen door.
Simon went to the window, his hand hovering near his phone to dial 911. But when he pulled back the curtain, he paused.
It was Linda. Alone.
She had no camera. No gift basket. She was wearing an oversized trench coat over her nightgown, her hair unbrushed, her face pale and sunken. She looked utterly broken.
Simon looked at me, questioning.
“Let her in,” I said quietly, sitting at the kitchen table with August in my arms. “Keep the deadbolt on the chain, but let her speak.”
Simon unlocked the door, opening it six inches. “What do you want, Linda?”
“Please,” Linda whimpered, her voice shaking violently. “Please, Simon. Just five minutes. I beg of you.”
Simon looked back at me. I nodded once. He stepped aside, unlocking the chain, but remained standing directly between Linda and the table where I sat.
Linda stumbled into the warm kitchen. She looked at August, then looked at me, and suddenly collapsed into one of the wooden dining chairs, burying her face in her trembling hands. A low, ragged sob tore out of her chest.
“She ruined me,” Linda wept. “She ruined both of us.”
“What are you talking about, Mom?” I asked, keeping my voice level and cold.
Linda looked up, her mascara smeared across her wrinkled cheeks. “The brand canceled her contract this morning. Not only did they cancel it, they demanded an immediate return of her advance, and their legal team sent a cease-and-desist threatening a fifty-thousand-dollar lawsuit for breach of morality clauses and unauthorized commercial filming.”
“That’s Kendra’s problem,” Simon said coldly. “Not ours.”
“You don't understand!” Linda cried, grabbing Simon’s sleeve desperately before he pulled away. “The loan! The signature! Clara, please listen to me!”
I watched my mother, feeling a strange, hollow sensation in my chest. “What signature, Mom?”
Linda swallowed hard, her chest heaving. The secret she had buried for five years was finally clawing its way to the surface.
“Five years ago... after your father died... Kendra wanted to start her influencer agency,” Linda stammered, unable to meet my eyes. “She needed collateral for a sixty-thousand-dollar business loan. The bank wouldn't approve her. So... she told me that if I co-signed against my house, she would pay the mortgage every month.”
I stared at her. “You put Grandma’s house—your only asset—up as collateral for Kendra’s vanity project?”
“I had to! She was my daughter!” Linda wailed. “And then she defaulted on the loan two years ago. The bank was going to foreclose. Kendra told me she had an investor, but she needed ten thousand dollars immediately. Clara... the money Dad left you for your college fund... the remainder that was sitting in the trust account...”
The room went dead silent.
I felt the blood drain completely from my face.
“You gave her my inheritance,” I whispered.
“I didn’t give it to her! She took it!” Linda sobbed, rocking back and forth. “She found the paperwork! She told me that if I didn't sign the transfer, she would tell everyone in the family that Dad had an affair before he died! She threatened to destroy his memory! She blackmailed me, Clara! For five years, she has held that loan over my head! Every time she needs money, she threatens to stop paying her portion, and the bank will take my home!”
The pieces of my entire life suddenly clicked into place with horrifying precision.
The favoritism. The endless excuses for Kendra’s cruelty. The way my mother always forced me to give up my toys, my clothes, my bedroom, and my peace to appease Kendra’s tantrums. Linda hadn't favored Kendra because she loved her more.
Linda favored Kendra because Kendra held her by the throat.
“So when Kendra told you she needed to scam our baby shower for five hundred dollars to make her car payment...” I said slowly, the horror rising in my throat.
“She told me that if she lost the car, she couldn't drive to her photo shoots, and the mortgage would default,” Linda wept. “I didn't want to hurt you, Clara. I swear to God I didn't want to hurt you. But I was terrified of losing my house! I was terrified of dying on the street!”
I looked down at August. His tiny fingers were curled around the edge of his cotton swaddle.
I thought of what kind of mother would sacrifice one child to protect the monster she had created in the other.
“You chose her,” I said softly.
“Clara, please—”
“For five years, you let her rob me. You let her steal my inheritance. You helped her break into my house while I was screaming in labor. You stood on my front porch and called me a bitch on camera to protect your house.”
“I was desperate!”
“You were a coward,” Simon said, his voice ringing with pure steel. “You are a grown woman who threw your pregnant daughter to the wolves to save yourself from your own financial stupidity.”
Linda sat there, weeping silently, her shoulders slumped in complete defeat.
“Where is Kendra now?” I asked.
“She’s at my house,” Linda whispered. “She’s packing her bags. She said she’s leaving town before the police come for the theft charges. But Clara... the bank called this morning. The foreclosure notice arrived. If Kendra leaves... I have nowhere to go.”
Linda looked up at me, her eyes pleading for mercy, for a rescue, for the dutiful daughter she had spent thirty years exploiting to fix the mess.
I took a deep breath. I felt August’s steady heartbeat against my ribs.
May you like
“Then you better call a real estate agent, Mom,” I said. “Because you cannot stay here.”
***