Chapter 6 - Panic at the Dinner Table
Back in Oak Ridge, the chaos began precisely at four-fifteen in the afternoon.
I learned the details later from my cousin Chloe, who was the only person in the extended family with enough sense to see through my mother’s theatrical productions.
Aunt Linda, Uncle Robert, Grandma Evelyn, and two cousins had arrived at my parents’ house dressed in their festive holiday best, bearing casseroles, bottles of wine, and stacks of wrapped boxes.
The first problem arose immediately when Grandma Evelyn stepped through the foyer and pulled out her iPad to show everyone pictures of her new great-grandchild from Florida.
"Arthur, what is your Wi-Fi password again? It’s not connecting automatically," Grandma had asked, peering through her bifocals.
"The internet is down, Evelyn," Dad had mumbled, hovering near the kitchen counter looking visibly pale and sweaty. "The whole neighborhood is out."
"That’s strange," Uncle Robert remarked, pulling out his Verizon phone. "My 5G is working completely fine. Four bars. Look."
Dad had stared at Robert’s phone like it was an alien artifact.
Meanwhile, Madison was having a full-blown meltdown in the guest bathroom. Without high-speed data, she couldn't load her makeup tutorial videos, she couldn't access her cloud playlist for the house speakers, and none of her friends could see the photos she had taken posing with her Birkin bag beside the Christmas tree.
"Mom!" Madison wailed, storming into the kitchen where Aunt Linda was helping set the table. "This is humiliating! I told Brandon I would FaceTime him at four! My phone won't do anything! It says 'No SIM' now!"
"Keep your voice down, Madison," Mom hissed through clenched teeth, her face flushed red from the oven’s heat. "I am trying to finish this roast. Maya pulled some childish prank before she left and messed with the router. Your father is going to fix it tomorrow."
Aunt Linda had paused, a bowl of glazed carrots in her hands. "Wait... where *is* Maya? I thought she was hosting with you this year. Didn't she cook the entire Christmas dinner last year?"
Mom’s smile had turned brittle, like sugar glass ready to shatter. "Maya had an... emergency. Work-related. She had to rush back to the city. You know how demanding her little consulting job is."
"Funny," Uncle Robert chimed in from the doorway, nursing a scotch. "I could have sworn Robert Jr. saw her car speeding out of the subdivision around noon looking like she was fleeing a fire. She didn't look like she was going to work."
Before Mom could spin another lie, Dad’s voice echoed sharply from the study down the hall.
"Helen! Come in here right now!"
The panic in his voice was unmistakable. Mom dropped her kitchen towel and hurried down the corridor, while Aunt Linda and Chloe exchanged curious glances and quietly followed.
Dad was sitting in front of his old desktop computer, which was tethered to a dusty emergency dial-up backup modem he hadn't used in six years. The ancient machine had finally managed to scrape together a connection to their bank’s web portal.
"What is it, Arthur?" Mom snapped, shutting the study door halfway—though not far enough to prevent Chloe from hearing everything through the crack.
"Look at the balance," Dad whispered, his voice trembling violently. "Look at the checking account."
"What am I looking at? We had four thousand dollars in checking yesterday!"
"The checking account is at negative six hundred and forty dollars," Dad rasped, his face devoid of all color. "The automatic mortgage draw hit this morning. And Maya’s monthly deposit never arrived."
"What do you mean it never arrived? She sends it on the twenty-fifth!"
"It was canceled, Helen! The pending status is gone! And look here—the phone company billed an early termination penalty of twelve hundred dollars for four lines because the primary account holder closed the contract! It hit our backup overdraft card—the one linked directly to our savings!"
"Call her!" Mom screamed, losing all composure. "Call the ungrateful little brat right now!"
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"With what phone, Helen?!" Dad roared back, his voice cracking with pure terror. "She canceled the service! We don't have phones! We don't have internet! We have nothing!"
***
