Chapter 1 - The Plate Beside the Dog Kennel
My name is Ethan Cole.
I built a real-estate company worth billions, but the strongest person I have ever known once went three days without eating so I could stay in college.
Her name is Margaret Cole.
My mother.
She cleaned houses, washed strangers’ clothes, and sold cinnamon pies from our apartment kitchen. When tuition was due during my junior year, she told me she had already eaten at work.
I found out years later that there had been no food at work.
She had lied because there was only enough money for one of us to eat properly.
So when Cole Development finally became successful, the first real luxury I bought wasn’t a sports car.
It was a home for her.
A six-bedroom house in Pacific Palisades with a garden large enough for the roses she had always wanted.
“You don’t have to work another day,” I told her.
She laughed.
“Then who’s going to tell you when you’re becoming an idiot?”
That was Margaret.
Which was why what I found that Thursday afternoon nearly broke something inside me.
My flight to New York had been canceled because of a mechanical issue.
I didn’t tell Victoria I was coming home.
I stopped at Bellwood Bakery and bought Mom’s favorite cinnamon bread.
When I entered the house, music was shaking the glass doors.
Victoria was hosting eight friends around the pool.
Champagne.
Designer handbags.
Music.
Phones recording everything.
I smiled at first.
Then I realized Mom wasn’t with them.
Her bedroom was empty.
So was the garden.
Then I heard laughter near the service courtyard behind the pool house.
I walked around the corner.
And stopped.
My mother was sitting on the concrete beside the dog kennel.
Barefoot.
Her gray cardigan was torn at one shoulder.
Her hands shook as she held a paper plate containing cold rice, skin, and chicken bones.
Bentley, our Labrador, stood several feet away staring at her plate.
Victoria stood over Mom in a white summer dress, champagne glass in one hand and her phone in the other.
Her friends were laughing.
“Come on, Margaret,” Victoria said. “Don’t be ungrateful. Bentley eats less dramatically.”
My mother looked up.
Then she saw me.
The plate slipped from her hands.
“Ethan…”
Victoria turned.
Every trace of amusement disappeared from her face.
“What are you doing home?”
I looked at the scraps.
Then at my mother.
Then at Victoria’s phone.
Its camera was pointed directly at Margaret.
And a red indicator showed that it was broadcasting live.
I walked over, took the phone from Victoria’s hand, and ended the stream.
“What the hell are you doing?” she snapped.
I ignored her.
I knelt beside Mom.
She smelled faintly of sweat and antiseptic.
Her lips were cracked.
“How long since you ate a proper meal?”
She shook her head.
“Mom.”
Her eyes filled.
Then, so quietly only I heard it, she said:
“Don’t believe the videos.”
I froze.
“What videos?”
Victoria stepped toward us.
“Ethan, your mother has been confused lately.”
Mom grabbed my sleeve.
“No.”
Her fingers were weak.
“She keeps making me say things about you.”
My stomach dropped.
“What things?”
Margaret looked past me at Victoria.
Fear crossed her face.
Then she whispered:
“That you starve me.”
Victoria’s champagne glass stopped halfway to her mouth.
And suddenly I understood that what I had walked into was not simply cruelty.
May you like
Someone had been building a story.
And I was apparently supposed to be its villain.
Related Stories
