Chapter 6 - The Fall of the Colonial
Three weeks later, the structural integrity of the Morgan family legacy completely collapsed.
Without Calder to manage the complex regulatory filings, the twelve-million-dollar Highland Park deal officially fell through. The primary lender called in the six-million-dollar construction bridge loan, demanding immediate settlement.
When Bram went to the bank to liquidate the family reserve accounts, he discovered that years of Bexley’s lavish entertaining, combined with funding Talia’s endless "acting projects" and failed business ventures, had drained the liquid reserves to almost nothing.
The firm was insolvent.
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, a moving truck pulled up to the brick colonial in Bexley Vale.
I was sitting in the passenger seat of Calder’s new truck as he pulled up across the street. We weren't there to gloat; we were there because the sheriff’s department had requested Calder’s presence as the former legal officer to sign off on the asset inventory surrender.
Bexley stood on her manicured front lawn under a golf umbrella, watching three movers carry out her antique mahogany sideboard. Her face was pale, her eyes hollow, her expensive designer coat looking absurd against the backdrop of eviction notices taped to her front door.
Bram sat on the stone steps, his head resting in his hands, looking old, frail, and utterly defeated.
Talia was sitting in her small convertible in the driveway, crying loudly into her phone, trying to find an apartment in Los Angeles that would accept a credit card that hadn't been declined yet.
Bexley spotted Calder’s truck.
She dropped her umbrella and marched across the wet grass, her expensive heels sinking into the mud. She slammed her hands against Calder’s driver’s side window.
Calder rolled the window down three inches.
"You did this!" Bexley shrieked, her voice cracking with hysterical rage. "You ruined us, Calder! Your own mother! Your own father! We gave you everything! We gave you a name! We gave you a home!"
Calder looked down at her calmly.
"You gave me a job where you paid me fifty cents on the dollar while taking credit for my labor," Calder said softly. "You gave my wife twelve years of subtle insults. And you gave my daughter a ruined birthday and a lesson in conditional love."
"It was just a cake!" she screamed, water pouring down her styled hair, ruining her pristine image. "It was just a stupid, foolish cake!"
"No, Bexley," I called out from the passenger seat, leaning over so she could see my face. "It was three days of a child's love. And you proved to the entire world that you were too bankrupt to afford it."
Bram walked slowly down the driveway, resting a heavy hand on his wife’s shoulder to pull her back. He looked through the window at Calder, his voice barely a whisper.
"Is Vance & Morgan buying the debt, son?" Bram asked.
"Yes," Calder said.
"Are you going to take the house?"
Calder looked at his father—the man who had spent forty years using money to control everyone around him.
"I don't want your house, Dad," Calder said quietly. "Vance & Morgan is converting the property into a non-profit community arts facility for youth programs. Wren is going to design the kitchen."
May you like
Bram stumbled back as if he had been punched in the chest.
Calder rolled up the window, put the truck in drive, and drove away, leaving the remnants of his past in his rearview mirror.
