Chapter 5 - The Dinner Table Confrontation
Darcy managed to drag Shay up the stairs, his muffled voice alternating between furious curses directed at me and clumsy reassurances aimed at soothing his hysterical daughter.
I took the opportunity to walk into the dining room. I cleared the mahogany table, laid out three white ceramic plates, set out glasses of water, and placed the second printed dossier right at the head of the table where Darcy usually sat.
When Darcy finally descended the stairs forty minutes later, his face was pale, his shoulders hunched. He walked into the dining room with the heavy, dragging footsteps of a defeated general.
"She's sedated," Darcy muttered, pulling out his chair and dropping heavily onto the cushion. "I had to give her one of my prescription anxiety pills. She’s upstairs hyperventilating. Are you happy now, Claire? Does this satisfy whatever sadistic impulse you've been harboring against an innocent girl?"
"Innocent?" I pulled out my chair opposite him and sat down. "Let's talk about innocence, Darcy. Open that folder."
"I don't need to look at your damn spreadsheets!" he growled, slamming his fist onto the wood. "We are talking about human lives! We are talking about my daughter's future! Do you have any idea what you've done? If she doesn't get that car back, she can't get to her internship. If she loses that apartment, she has nowhere to study. And the tuition—good God, Claire, she is one semester away from graduating! You are destroying four years of hard work over petty spite!"
"No," I replied, pointing firmly to the first page of the dossier. "I am holding up a mirror. Read the total at the bottom of page one."
Darcy glared at me, his jaw clenching so tight the tendons stood out on his neck. Reluctantly, his eyes flicked down to the bottom line of the summary sheet.
"Two hundred forty-eight thousand, six hundred and fifty dollars," I stated, reading the number aloud with cold precision. "Nearly a quarter of a million dollars, Darcy. That is the exact sum of money I have poured into Shay Miller over the last four years."
Darcy swallowed hard, his eyes flickering across the breakdown.
"Tuition and university fees: one hundred forty-seven thousand," I read. "Apartment rent, utilities, and high-speed internet: fifty-seven thousand six hundred. Vehicle down payment, monthly notes, insurance, and routine maintenance: twenty-four thousand two hundred. Allowance, credit card charges, electronics, designer handbags, spring break trips to Cabo: nineteen thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars."
"You... you gave those things freely," Darcy stammered, his bravado rapidly crumbling under the weight of hard numbers. "You said you wanted her to have the opportunities you never had when you were putting yourself through night school."
"I did," I admitted quietly. "I gave them freely because I believed I was investing in my family. I believed that love was demonstrated through presence, sacrifice, and generosity. I thought that by relieving the burden of debt from her shoulders, she would flourish into a mature, grateful, loving adult who recognized the village that lifted her up."
I leaned forward, fixing Darcy with an unyielding stare.
"Instead, what did my quarter of a million dollars buy me, Darcy? It bought me contempt. It bought me an arrogant, self-absorbed young woman who rolls her eyes when my elderly mother asks about her day. It bought me a housemate who walks past me without acknowledging my existence, who treats my home like a boutique hotel, and who publicly announces that I am nothing more than 'some woman her dad married.'"
"She didn't mean it that way—"
"Stop lying to yourself!" I cut him off, my voice sharp as a scalpel. "She meant every single syllable. And what is worse, Darcy—far worse than Shay’s cruelty—is that you permitted it. You enabled it. For four years, every time she sneered at me, you told me to be patient. Every time she demanded another thousand dollars for a vacation, you begged me to understand. And when she humiliated me at my own dinner table on Sunday, you stood over me and told me I had no right to discipline *your* daughter."
Darcy looked down at the table, unable to hold my gaze.
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"You were right, Darcy," I said softly. "She is *your* daughter. Not mine. And from this second forward, her bills, her housing, her transportation, and her future are entirely your responsibility."
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