Chapter 6 - The Mother-in-Law’s Desperation
Forty-eight hours after Jared’s arrest, the Vance family empire was rapidly turning to ash.
Jared remained held at the Central Booking facility in Baltimore, unable to post the fifty-thousand-dollar cash bail because all his corporate and personal accounts remained frozen by court order. Vance Enterprises was placed into temporary receivership by a federal judge following an emergency motion filed by Christopher.
Dwight had been suspended without pay from his position at a middle-market logistics firm after the news of his involvement in financial fraud reached his human resources department.
I was staying at a beautiful, sunlit short-term rental apartment near Inner Harbor, paid for entirely out of my retrieved forty-eight thousand dollars.
On Friday afternoon, as I was walking out of a local coffee shop carrying a warm latte, I heard a ragged, breathless voice call my name from the sidewalk.
"Elizabeth! Elizabeth, please wait!"
I turned around.
Susan Vance stood near the corner of the street. The impeccably dressed, arrogant matriarch who had handed me a "Duties of the Daughter-in-Law" sheet five days ago was completely unrecognizable. Her hair was frizzy, her designer coat was rumpled, and her face was lined with deep, exhaustion-born wrinkles.
She hurried toward me, her eyes wild with desperation.
"Elizabeth... thank God I found you," Susan gasped, reaching out her hands, but I took a firm step back, maintaining a five-foot distance.
"Stay back, Susan," I warned, my tone sharp. "I have a protective order against your family."
"I know, I know! I'm sorry!" Susan wept, dropping her hands, her voice trembling violently. "I just need ten minutes to talk to you! Please... Jared is still in jail! The food there is terrible, his blood pressure is spiking, and the guards won't let him have his medication!"
"Then hire a better lawyer," I replied coldly, taking a sip of my latte.
"We can't afford a lawyer!" Susan cried out, throwing her hands in the air. "The bank froze everything! The landlord at the apartment gave us a three-day notice to quit because the rent check bounced! Gemma had to drop out of her private college classes, and Dwight is sitting in his room staring at the wall, refusing to eat!"
I looked at her, utterly unmoved by her sob story.
"Five days ago, Susan," I reminded her, "you walked into my bedroom, handed me a hundred dollars, and expected me to wash six people's dirty underwear, cook twenty-one meals a week, and pay eight hundred dollars a month for the privilege of being abused in your house."
"I was wrong!" Susan sobbed, dropping to her knees right there on the busy Baltimore sidewalk, unbothered by the stares of passing pedestrians. "I was trying to protect my family's pride! Jared was under so much stress with the company... we were desperate! We thought if Dwight married someone with money, we could all survive!"
"You didn't want to survive, Susan," I spat back, looking down at her kneeling figure. "You wanted a servant to feed your ego and a piggy bank to pay for your luxury lifestyle. You stood there and watched your husband slap me twice, and you didn't say a single word."
"I'm begging you, Elizabeth!" Susan wept, clutching at the hem of my coat. "Drop the criminal charges against Jared! Release the hold on the emergency business account so we can pay our rent! We'll give you a full annulment! We'll never contact you again!"
I leaned down slightly, looking into her tear-streaked face.
"Do you remember what you told me on my wedding night?" I whispered softly.
Susan blinked, confused through her tears. "What... what did I say?"
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"'In this house, my son’s wife obeys or she leaves,'" I quoted, a cold, sharp smile spreading across my lips. "Well, Susan... I left. And now, you get to deal with the house you built."
I pulled my coat from her grip, turned my back on her, and walked away down the street, leaving her crying on the pavement.
