PART 3

The closer Saturday got, the calmer my parents became.

That was the most twisted part of all. They genuinely believed that stealing my passport, trying to drain my savings, and burying me in tax debt had restored order to the family. Brenda hosted women from the country club on the veranda and told them I had “finally grown up.” Richard boasted to clients that Cook Catering was preparing to “move into premium events.” Harper drifted around the house in silk robes, rubbing her barely visible stomach and demanding imported wallpaper.

I served iced tea to Brenda’s guests with a polite smile.

“Farrah understands that family comes first,” Brenda told a woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat. “Young people go through rebellious phases, but she finally understands where she belongs.”

I poured tea.

I stayed quiet.

Inside the prep kitchen, I designed beautiful schedules for Harper’s baby shower. The corkboard listed lobster tartlets, prime rib carving stations, oysters on ice, imported cheeses, vanilla bean buttercream cake, and champagne service. It looked like the work of a flawless event planner.

But the walk-in cooler was almost bare.

I had ordered nothing.

No lobster. No beef. No oysters. No champagne glasses. No imported cheese.

Inside the cooler sat two gallons of milk, wilted celery, three tubs of mustard, and silence.

Harper expected a luxury shower for one hundred and fifty wealthy guests at a riverfront estate. Her future in-laws expected sophistication. Brenda expected admiration.

What they were actually going to receive was an empty room.

Forty-eight hours before the shower, Harper stormed into the kitchen clutching her phone.

“The interior designer found an Italian crib,” she announced. “And custom silk wallpaper. She needs a deposit. Transfer me ten thousand dollars.”

I kept wiping down the stainless-steel counter. “No.”

Harper blinked as if the word had slapped her across the face. “Excuse me?”

“No,” I repeated. “I do not have ten thousand dollars for wallpaper.”

“You have forty-two thousand sitting there doing nothing.”

“It is not doing nothing,” I replied. “It is keeping me alive.”

She stomped her foot like a furious child. “I’m having a baby.”

“Then ask the baby’s father.”

The swinging kitchen doors opened.

Brenda walked in wearing pearls and carrying a yellow legal pad sheet. She placed it in front of me on the counter. Written in her looping cursive handwriting was a contract declaring that I agreed to transfer all my personal savings into the Cook Catering operating account for “family needs and event expenses.”

At the bottom sat a blank line for my signature.

“What is this?” I asked.