I motioned for the doctor to wait ten seconds, walked three paces down the quiet hospital corridor, and answered the FaceTime call.
Ryan’s face filled my screen, red and glistening with sweat, his bow tie undone and hanging crooked around his collar. Behind him, I could see the bright overhead house lights of the Waverly ballroom turned all the way up—the romantic ambient lighting was dead, the DJ booth was dark, and guests were awkwardly crowded near the coat check while two club security guards stood by the bar.
"Are you out of your freaking mind, Dad?!" Ryan screamed, his voice cracking as he paced inside what looked like the venue’s coatroom. "The manager just walked out in the middle of our first dance set, cut the speakers, and demanded thirty-eight grand in front of all of Chloe’s clients and family! He says if we don't pay it right now, he’s calling the cops and impounding all the wedding gifts and our luggage in the bridal suite as collateral!"
Before I could say a single word, Chloe shoved her face into the camera frame. Her heavy reception makeup was streaked with furious tears, and her manicured finger pointed straight at the lens.
"You pathetic, vindictive piece of garbage!" Chloe shrieked, so loud the nurses at the station twenty feet away looked up at me. "You call that manager back and run your corporate Amex right now! You promised to pay for this wedding! Who the hell do you think you are embarrassing me in front of two hundred people over a stupid wig?!"
I tilted my phone camera around and pointed it squarely through the glass window of Isolation Bay 4.
Inside, Helen lay flat on the hospital gurney under harsh fluorescent lights. A bulky white sterile bandage was wrapped tightly around her bare, scarred head, stained with a quarter-sized spot of bright red blood above her left eyebrow. Three IV pumps were blinking beside her, and an oxygen nasal cannula was taped to her pale cheeks while a cardiologist stared at the green spikes on her heart monitor.
"Take a good look, Ryan," I said, my voice terrifyingly calm. "That’s your mother. Her blood pressure hit stroke levels because your wife ripped the skin off her forehead and humiliated her on a live microphone. She’s on a nitroglycerin drip so her heart doesn't give out."
For half a second, Ryan blinked at the screen, his mouth opening slightly. I thought—for one fleeting, foolish fraction of a second—that seeing his mother hooked up to cardiac monitors might wake up the boy I used to coach in Little League.
Instead, Brenda’s bleach-blonde head popped into the frame behind Ryan’s shoulder.
"Oh, please, spare us the melodrama, David!" Brenda scoffed, rolling her eyes. "She’s at a hospital, she gets infusions there every week anyway, she’s fine! Stop trying to guilt-trip your son on his wedding night and pay the damn catering bill before my sister’s husband finds out!"
"Yeah, Dad, seriously," Ryan jumped right back in, his jaw hardening into a defensive sneer. "Mom always overreacts to stress. You’re doing this on purpose to ruin our night because you’ve never liked Chloe! Unfreeze the Amex right now!"
"Not a dime, Ryan," I said coldly. "And while we’re talking about felonies, I suggests you hand your mother’s stolen iPhone and driver’s license to the Oak Brook police when they get there. Because I already froze the $240,000 wire transfer you tried to steal from our HELOC today. Come Monday morning, I’m filing federal wire fraud and elder abuse charges against all three of you."
I expected Ryan to panic. I expected him to stammer or deny it.
Instead, Chloe let out a cold, nasty laugh, and Ryan looked straight into the camera with a smug, chilling smile that made the hair on my arms stand straight up.
"Good luck with that, old man," Ryan said softly. "You can't arrest me for stealing when I’m legally allowed to empty every account Mom’s name is on. Who do you think drove her to her four-hour chemo infusion on Thursday when you were stuck at your job site in Joliet? While she was knocked out on IV Benadryl and Ativan, Brenda’s brother came by the clinic with his notary stamp. Mom signed a Durable Financial Power of Attorney over to me—and that’s only half of what she signed before she passed out."
