Chapter 8 - The Eggshells on the Floor
Daniel advanced across the patio flagstones, his chest heaving, the metal skimmer pole dragging against the stone with an abrasive, screeching scrape.
“You think you’re so smart with your legal degrees and your locked doors, don’t you?” Daniel sneered, his voice rising in pitch as hysteria took over. “You humiliated me in front of Arthur Sterling! You destroyed my entire career in five minutes! You owe me that money, Mom! That house belongs to my father’s estate, which means it belongs to me!”
“Your father left his share of the estate to me in his final will, Daniel, filed and probated twenty years ago,” I said steadily, stepping backward toward the kitchen french doors without breaking eye contact. “You have no legal claim to this house. And what you did with the forged mortgage application is a federal penitentiary offense.”
“Shut up! Shut up!” Daniel lunged forward, swinging the metal pole sideways and smashing the glass patio table into a million glittering shards.
From inside the kitchen, Vanessa appeared, holding a heavy stainless-steel stockpot filled with the leftover, lukewarm rosemary sauce and broken Easter eggshells she had scraped off the counter. Her face was twisted into a mask of pure demonic rage.
“If we can’t live here, nobody eats!” Vanessa shrieked.
Before I could dodge aside, Vanessa rushed forward and hurled the entire contents of the stockpot directly at me.
The heavy, brownish-orange liquid, mixed with raw egg yolks and smashed shell fragments, hit me square in the chest and splashed upward, soaking my blouse, dripping down my face, and settling in clumps of sticky yolk in my hair.
I stood frozen for a fraction of a second, warm, slimy sauce dripping from my chin, raw eggshells resting absurdly in my hair.
Daniel burst into cruel, hysterical laughter, pointing at me. “Look at you! Look at you now! Queen of the estate covered in garbage!”
Vanessa doubled over, cackling wildly. “That’s what your cooking is really worth, Margaret!”
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They thought they had won. They thought the humiliation was complete.
They didn’t hear the heavy tactical boots storming up the stone pathway behind them.
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