Chapter 4 - The House of Glass
Ethan looked like a man standing before a firing squad. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Dolores abruptly surged forward, attempting to physically insert herself between Sarah and Ethan. "Sarah! That is private family business and you will not air it out on the lawn like common trash! This party is over. Everyone, please, leave! The party is over!"
None of the guests moved. Human nature was predictable: nobody walks away from a train wreck when the cars are still derailing.
"No, Mom, the party isn't over until I say it's over," Sarah said, her voice cutting through Dolores's panicked dismissal. "You see, Madison, two weeks ago, I went to the bank to check on the educational trust David set up for Lily before he died. A trust that my mother and Ethan were supposed to co-manage with me."
Madison frowned, looking between Sarah and Ethan. "What does that have to do with my purse?"
"When I checked the ledger," Sarah said, her eyes locked on Ethan, "I noticed an unauthorized withdrawal of two thousand five hundred dollars. Made from an ATM in downtown Chicago, right across the street from the luxury boutique."
The silence in the backyard became absolute. Even the suburban crickets seemed to stop chirping.
Madison slowly let go of Ethan’s wet sleeve. "What?"
"Ethan has access to the secondary management account for emergencies," Sarah explained, her voice razor-sharp. "I called him about it. He swore up and down it was an administrative bank error and that the funds would be replaced by Friday. He begged me not to audit the full account until the bank resolved it."
Sarah turned her gaze directly back to the smoldering, half-melted handbag on the grass.
"You didn't buy that bag with your bonus, Ethan. You bought that bag with the money David left behind to pay for Lily's private speech therapy and college fund."
A collective, horrified gasp rippled through the guests.
"Jesus Christ, Ethan," Uncle Frank muttered, shaking his head in absolute disgust.
"That's a lie!" Ethan shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. He stepped toward Sarah, his hands waving wildly. "That's a complete lie! I had cash! I transferred it! The accounts got mixed up because the branch manager screwed up the routing numbers!"
"The routing numbers?" Sarah laughed, but there was no joy in it—only pure, unadulterated venom. "I spent the last two days with a forensic accountant, Ethan. You didn't just take twenty-five hundred dollars for her purse. Over the last fourteen months, you and Mom have drained over forty thousand dollars from my daughter’s trust fund to float your failing lifestyle!"
Dolores went pale as a sheet. Her manicured hands began to shake at her sides. "Sarah... that is completely untrue, you are misinterpreting the investments..."
"I have the bank statements printed out on my kitchen counter right now, Dolores!" Sarah roared, using her mother’s first name for the first time in her life. "Every single transaction. The weekend trips to Aspen. The lease payments on Ethan's BMW. The catered engagement party. You two have been stealing from a dead man and an eight-year-old orphan to make sure Madison didn't realize she married an unemployed fraud!"
Madison spun around to face Ethan, her eyes bulging with horror. "Unemployed?! What is she talking about, Ethan?! You told me you were a senior partner!"
"Madison, baby, listen to me, she's lying to destroy us—" Ethan pleaded, reaching for her.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Madison screeched, shoving him backward so hard he stumbled over a lawn chair and crashed onto the grass beside the fire pit. "Is that true?! Is your marketing firm broke?!"
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"Your firm went bankrupt nine months ago, Ethan," Sarah announced to the entire crowd. "And Mom has been illegally transferring David's life insurance payout to your personal account to keep your country-club membership active and your wife draped in luxury. You bought that bag with my daughter's future. So when your miserable, cruel wife used it to smash Lily's cake... burning it was the gentlest thing I could have possibly done."
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